


All The King's Men: The Englishman

by Nidsk, viske



Series: All The King's Men [1]
Category: Vinland Saga (Anime), Vinland Saga (Manga)
Genre: Angst, Art, Blow Jobs, Canon Compliant, Harems, M/M, Manga Spoilers, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Alternating, Scars, Smut, historically compliant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-01
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:00:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 47,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22516672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nidsk/pseuds/Nidsk, https://archiveofourown.org/users/viske/pseuds/viske
Summary: As they walked around the perimeter of the unit, the warrior looked over at Wulf. The redheaded man adjusted the hilt of his sword in its sheath and started, “I hear the king-”Wulf lifted his head to look at the man who now had a wolfish smile across his face,  “I heard the king has a harem full of lads, is that true?”Wulf didn’t respond to the smile, only to the question, “Yes, his highness doesn’t want to run the risk of fathering any bastards.”“Cautious” The man responded as they both dipped their heads under low hanging branches.Wulf grumbled in recognition.“I also heard all the lads look alike, blonde-”Interrupting immediately, Wulf barked, “I think you should exercise some caution of your own.”A canon compliant exploration of Canute’s story during the events of Vinland Saga.Each chapter includes new art.On hiatus but not dropped.
Relationships: Canute/Edmund Ironside, Canute/Thorfinn (Vinland Saga), Canute/Various OMCs
Series: All The King's Men [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1664593
Comments: 46
Kudos: 132





	1. Sut

**Author's Note:**

> **To Note:** Homosexuality was not regarded by the Viking peoples of Scandinavia as being evil or perverted. Rather, it was felt that a man who subjected himself to another in sexual affairs would do the same in other areas, being a follower rather than a leader. Thus, homosexual sex was not what was condemned, but rather the failure to stand for one's self and make one's own decisions, which went directly against the Nordic ethic of self-reliance. It would therefore only be socially acceptable for a Viking man of Canute’s rank to ‘top’ his thralls(slaves).

**_All The King’s Men_ **

**__ **

* * *

**_Chapter 1: Sut_ **

**_February 1018_ **

The poignancy of death had been somewhat devalued by this time in his life. Sometimes, it came with a blood-curdling scream that wrapped so tightly around his heart, he thought that scream would take him down too. Sometimes, it came quietly, swathed in darkness and silence, it came with so little anticipation, he’d often doubt that it even came at all. Most of the time though, it simply came with a strangled cry or a whimper, as those around him lay like trampled grass at his feet. 

Despite this, he hadn’t taken much consideration of the way death may come for him. 

But, he didn’t want it to be here, in a market just outside Jelling, bound in the ropes of a slave, and with a smell so foul it’d begun to peel the skin from the inside of his nose. He was close to pulling down on the rope and ending it himself, just to get away from it all. This wasn’t the way he’d thought he’d go, but with the life he had lived, it was the way that he perhaps deserved to. 

Or, perhaps he was already dead, maybe this was his punishment for the rest of his eternity, in tight binds and the burn of vomit in the back of his throat. Valhalla was not as great as the stories had made it out to be.

“Can you not smell that?” He whispered to the girl beside him. She peered down at him with her long ashen blond hair hanging around her sullen face.

The short man wretched dramatically and pulled down at his own binds. This wasn’t the first time he’d feigned such a sacrilegious motion and if he did survive today and that awful smell, he was sure it wouldn’t be the last. 

She quickly looked over to the slave merchant who was talking to a tall man, who’s willowy stature looked almost comical against his own stoutness.

She shrugged when she was sure he wasn’t paying attention, “S’just what cities smell like.”

“Fucking kill me,” he tugged down again and groaned with little consideration of the consequences of the volume. 

The slaver hissed toward the young Viking in matched volume, “If you don’t shut up right now, I’ll be happy to oblige that!”

The buyer’s face pinched with frustration as he spoke, "I'm glad to see you're being inconspicuous," the sarcastic tone hovered above the sounds of the crowded marketplace.

He made lengths along the line of slaves before stopping in front of the small man. Swamp green eyes bore into him with pinprick pupils that moved their way slowly across the contours of his face. This wasn’t the first time he’d faced such a sight and unless this ugly new buyer planned to work him to death, he was pretty sure it wouldn’t be his last. His stomach twisted with that last thought. Despite his never-ending dramatism and jesting he wasn’t ready to die a slave. 

The next voice was that of the slaver, a voice he’d become accustomed to shudder at. Not because of the man that followed it, rather for the nasal wheeze that followed every ‘I’,"I have other merchandise to move, and if your buyer isn't interested, maybe someone else will." 

He almost begged the sharp-eyed man to take him away there and then, just to rid him of that fucking awful nose whistle. 

The man looked quickly around the others he was stood amongst before turning back to the scruffy haired fighter, "I presume it's this one." The man went to poke him in the shoulder but stopped before his clean fingernail hit him.

The slaver stepped forward, into the pits from his proverbial ivory tower. His nose was just as ugly as the day he’d broken it with a quick punch to try and solve that terrible whistling issue. 

"This is him,” he grinned, with crooked teeth and tone, “Picked him out of a bunch of prisoners from Ribe."

The sharp-eyed man looked him up and down again, with the same absurd intensity as he’d done so before as if counting the moles upon his skin and the hair on his forearms. 

"What do you think of him?" The slaver whistled. 

His blood curled as did his lip. He bit down on the inside of his cheek to transfer some of his irritation to the soft flesh of his mouth. 

The buyer then smiled and took a step backward. The girl in the line-up, who stood taller and broader than him, seemed confused at the display. 

"He's about the right height," the buyer crooned, eyes still not leaving the small slave’s face.

"He's perfect!” The slaver choked in a fit of desperation, “He’s better than any man I've had before!" If the snarling blonde boy didn’t know any better, he’d have thought he was a prize pig, for a second he wished he was, he’d surely have a better life than this one. 

Cocking an eyebrow, the man smirked, the lines on his gaunt face almost disappearing in the midday sun "Don't get too eager, my liege has turned down other boys just like this one."

The slaver had made them all travel a long way to get to Jelling, as a special request of someone important apparently. He’d thought that was just bullshit, he knew that slaves fetched a higher price in the capital than in the field bound towns the group of them had been dragged from. 

The gaunt faced man ran his finger over the jagged fringe above his eyebrows, hair that not too long ago had been shawn short to keep the lice at bay. Other than the women, he for some reason was the only one allowed to grow it out again, "How old is he?" 

"19 summers, give or take." 

He thinks that was right. 

"He's healthy," The slaver stepped up again and poked at one of the many scars decorating his arms like the rings on a birchwood trunk, "and I can assure you the scars are not from me."

"We have our ways of finding out if you are lying," the strange man’s face grew even sterner than it already was and those boring eyes made their way over to the stout trader.

He was quick to respond in full nasal desperation, "I know, I can assure you. He was a Viking -"

The man suddenly turned his head to the birchwood man, "Is that correct?"

Excitement a will to live suddenly coursed through his body at the prospect of picking up a weapon again. 

"Yes sir," the words felt tacky in his mouth after hours of silence despite his eagerness to get them out. Suddenly the taste of iron flooded his tongue as he realised the clench on his cheek had begun to draw blood. 

"How did you get this scar?"

He pointed to a particularly ugly scar on his left bicep.

He’d gotten that on a raid. Where he’d piled on furs from the town onto his person too soon and another man from his group had thought he was one of the town’s chieftains and swung at him with his thick axe before looking up to check his face. The blow had cut right down to the bone and had been infected for weeks. It was one of his ugliest scars and had the most pointless reasoning behind it.

"A raid outside of Bornholm," he croaked, with no intention of revealing the rest of the story. 

Seemingly satiated with that version of the truth, the man looked over to a cloaked figure across the bustling marketplace. 

Blonde hair glistened under black fur in the winter sun.

The merchant pulled a small knife from his belt. It was still sheathed in ornate leather when it made its way under the hem of the slave's shirt and lifted. The air was cool against his midriff and he could feel his muscles tense as the skin prickle. The sheathed knife rose up his body, pulling his tunic with it. With the tunic pulled away, it revealed a strong stomach and bulky pectorals. The slave shivered as the wind chill gnawed to a point of discomfort. He shifted in his rope shackles and the coarse fibers rubbed the skin on his wrists. 

  
  


"Before my buyer comes over, you must take off these cuffs," the man commanded as he poked at the largest knot with his knife. 

He looked over to see the cloaked figure moving across the square, gracefully finding his way between merchants and customers. 

"No! Are you mad? If he runs-"

"If he runs we have men," The thin man took a step backwards and pointed into the moving crowds at a thickly built man in a leather chest piece, "here" and then to another two of equal intimidation,"here and here." He folded his arms into his chest in defiance, "My buyer will never buy one of his men in shackles however, you must cut these bonds yourself, I’m not going to cut the bonds of a slave that I do not own."

The slaver scoffed with a cautious chuckle in his throat, “No way!” 

The stocky slave and the others in his line up watched on in equal parts amazement and amusement at the whistle nosed man’s discomfort. Amongst all the commotion he’d barely registered that the cloaked figure had approached the small group with a leather chested man in tow. The blonde man then took the knife from the thin man and in one movement, unsheathed it and slashed the ropes binding his neck and hand.

“What are -” The slaver stopped mid-sentence as the blond man turned to him and the air around the group of people suddenly turned thin. 

“You’d be a pretty poor trader if you do not have any more rope,” the figure spoke in a tone like water dropping onto polished marble, each sound separate from the last as if every drop had been considered before it fell. 

The slave hadn’t taken the time to think about his new position, his elbows were still bent, hands by his chest before the man had turned his gaze on to him. 

He’d always found it hard to find warmth in a pair of blue eyes before. Beauty? Sure, but the warmth was seemingly only reserved for the chocolate eyes of his mother and the hazel of his sister. But this blue, cocooned in golden lashes, deep and peaceful like a fjord with the summer light glinting upon its surface. He could feel that warm water around his aching bones. 

"Boy, let me see your hands," the man requested.

He turned his palms so they were facing upward. The colour had left them a little and the tips had begun to turn purple in the cold. 

The man took a palm between his own and ran unworked fingers over the slave's. The soft pad of his fingers tickling against the calluses and stretched scar tissue that littered his hand. 

"Are these from farm work, or from battle?" he pressed, as he continued to inspect the hands of the prospective worker. 

Hesitantly, the slaver stepped forward and spoke with a shaky voice, "The boy, he was a Viking but he worked on his family's-"

The man’s head snapped up, sending silken blonde hair loose from the confines of his hood. He didn’t turn toward the slaver and instead kept those eyes locked upon the the short slave, "I'm sure he can speak for himself," a shudder ricocheted down his spine. "Unless you cut out his tongue, then me not filling your pockets will be the least of your worries,'' The man spoke as if God himself had picked out every word.

As much as those eyes seemed to coddle him with warmth, that tone seemed more intent on burning him alive.

He paused before he spoke, "As I told your _dog_ ,” the pause hadn’t helped him collect the right words at all and the ethereal looking man eyed him with caution as he continued, “I fought and farmed, a little." 

"You appear strong."

The man squeezed at his upper arm, still with the kind of delicate touch he’d afforded his hands. 

"I am strong," he resolutely responded, flexing into the man’s grip. 

The beautiful, unfamiliar man seemed satiated with his physicality and history. 

He wondered what this man was going to have him do. He wouldn’t mind farming but he would prefer to fight. So long as he wasn’t going to have to clean or cook, he’d had to do that with his sister before and he was undoubtedly terrible at it. A man like this surely needed fighters, he thought, as it seemed like he’d never picked up a sword before in his life. 

Then the blonde man moved his hand to his face and gently touched his lower lip. The short man jumped backward, almost stumbling into the river that ran behind them. He wobbled on the flagstone before composing himself again. The slaver jumped and hurried toward his bumbling merchandise, before he was halted by the stare of the cloaked man, who simply waited for the commotion to pass as he gently returned his outstretched hand to by his side. 

He’d never had a prospective owner touch his lips before. Perhaps, this was a technique to gauge how healthy someone was. He thought he ought to give the beautiful man another chance and stepped from the flagstone and back into the line. 

The man paused and held out his palm again, his hand and wrist unflexed, ready for the slave to move his face into it. Lightly, he ran his unworked finger tip across the plump skin, catching on the small cracks that had formed over the particularly harsh winter. The soft moment sent tiny shivers through his body like stray snowflakes.

"Open your-"

Before he had finished his request and as if by their own volition his lips had parted. The finger was replaced with a thumb and ran against the spit slick inner of his lip, brushing over his waiting tongue in the process. He thought about retracting it but didn’t, and waited as the stoic man raised his thumb from his lips and moved it over the moles on his cheek. There was a concentration in those blue eyes as the light glinted on his lashes, like gold woven into a tapestry. 

He was familiar, he was so familiar. Perhaps, they’d met before.

"I want him," he stated, still sliding his thumb over a cheekbone. He removed the hand and moved it to his own face, sliding the same thumb over a scar on his otherwise unfaltered face.

"I will put the shackles-" The slaver cried, stupidly.

The man snapped his lingering hand away from his cheek, "Don't you dare,"

He nodded violently before bowing,"Yes, your highness."

Suddenly he felt like he’d swallowed an iron pot and it just dropped into his stomach. This beautiful and seemingly enigmatically kind man, was the king- King Canute, Emperor of the North Sea. And he’d just had his thumb in his mouth. 

"Pay the man,” He waved to the thin man, “and take the others too. She will be very helpful. She looks strong."

And as he travelled in the back of a cart, two horses length away from the King, his gut churned and fluttered and his mind waned in circles like the wheels that moved beneath them as they travelled back to the King’s residence. He’d waited for war before, and this feeling was something entirely different.

The driver halted and ushered the slave from the back of the car and then moved away, leaving him stood in the centre of a strange city surrounded by strange people, alone. 

A red headed girl tapped him on the exposed forearm and gave a courteous smile, “You are to come with me.” 

He was led to a building by the side of the imposing building that he’d assumed to be the King’s residence. Smoke licked from the hole in the roof, almost blending directly into the thick, grey clouds that hung over the city. Clouds that promised snow. As the door was opened and he was lead inside a bath was waiting for him, as were new clothes and a hot meal. All was swathed in the light that emanated from an ample fire pit. 

“Once you are finished I will be waiting. I’ve been instructed to give you as much time as you need.”

He nodded and closed the door behind him, leaving the auburn haired girl in the grey mirth of the failing light.

He was confused as he dug into the ample meal of fresh deer and potatoes left on well carved wooden plates. He was confused as he peeled the old clothes from his body, surprised that they didn’t disintegrate with the softest of tugs and again when he slipped into the warm bath, scented with thyme and the warm smell of oak the barrel had been carved from. Mostly he’s confused by the serendipitous kindness that was afforded to a man like himself, a kindness he could drown in, like the fragrant waters around him, or the summer fjord of the King’s eyes. 

Kindness was a dangerous thing to a man like him. 

After indulging himself in the apparent goodwill of the king of the vikings for what seemed like hours, he wrangled himself into the pile of clothes left for him. They were left with an unexpected carefulness for clothes of this kind. The piles of dark fur, covered with taupe linen were folded in a neat pile before he began to pull them onto his body. They fit, pretty much. With the trousers straining across the thigh, and shirt across the chest. He had to tie the lacing around his hips a little looser than he would usually like, but they fit, as if they’d been entirely made for someone of his stature. 

The fur itched at his wrists as he opened the door to find the girl still standing there with a redness from the cold creeping across her milky freckled skin. 

She smiled again, but this time with a little more openness. A kind of trusting only earned by seemingly entering the room one man and emerging another. 

She leaned into him close enough he could smell her. The sweet smell of a woman that had long since left his memory filled his senses and his stomach with butterflies. She reached over and shook her hand in his damp hair, ruffling his grown-out bangs. 

  
"He will like this better," she hummed, pleased with herself. 

He nodded quickly but was careful to minimize the damage to her careful dishevelment, "Okay, thank you."

"No problem, Sut," she grinned with plump lips and gapped teeth.

He mentally cocked his head at the name, like a dog being trained for the first time. She placed a hand on his thickly clothed shoulders and lead him across the streets, both their feet trudging loudly against the backdrop of distant lives in distant houses. 

For a moment, he thought he could see those green eyes looking at him through strands of copper hair before she stopped in front of a large door, framed with wrought iron and heavy bolts. 

She paused and rolled onto the balls of her feet, the gravel in front of the door crunched lightly with the movement, "Another tip, uh next time, if there is one don't bathe, I don't know if the others will tell you this-"

"What?" He interrupted, her endearing swaying not offsetting the confusion and panic rising in him. 

She pinched her eyebrows together, "I'm probably not the best person to explain this to you," and held out a freckled hand and tapped it lightly on the heavy door. 

King Canute opened the door, a bleary look in his eye and a loose tunic draped over lithe yet surprisingly broad frame.The deep green and gold grew from vibrant to washed out as he stepped out into the dark.

He peered around in the darkness for stray flickering lights, "Come in."

The slave looked around, waiting for the girl to step inside, only to realise she had hurried away in the time it'd taken Canute to open the door. 

The heavy door opened onto walls built from books. Colourful bound leather blended into one another as molten bricks, paper spilling from their binds like broken mortar and leather scrolls in haphazard stacks of carefully rolled firewood propped against them. 

"Your highness," he bowed in the centre of the room as Canute moved toward the desk beneath a pile of open books.

Canute shook his head, "Don't do that" 

"I'm sorry-" 

"Don't do that either," he commanded, leaning against the only sparsely exposed wood on his desk, legs crossed at the ankles.

"What do you want then, you bastard?" The slave hissed in frustration, wanting to move from the spot in the room he'd chosen but he couldn't, perhaps his legs were too smart to do so.

Canute lifted his head and looked down his nose at the biting blonde, whose face was twisted into a frustrated snarl.

He rolled his lips together before beginning to speak, "My name is -" 

"I have no desire to know your name," Canute waved his hand by his head and then placed it over pouted lips, " _Sut_ ".

"What?" He responded in misplaced indignation. Canute was the king after all, he had every right to interrupt, but he still wanted to punch the smug royal in the face. 

"All the new boys go by that name for a while"

" _Sut,_ " he repeated back to the king, who seemed satisfied and somewhat relieved. 

Canute smoothly pushed himself up from his position and paced towards Sut, "Do you have any idea why I've called you here?"

He looked around the room at the cascading piles of literature that he couldn’t read, "I guess you don't want me to read you a story." 

Canute didn’t respond to the comment and his face was riddled with a quiet determination that was almost unknown to Sut, who’d found himself around men who screeched their wants in a chorus of cries and battlefield instrumentation.

"Sut," The new name exited Canute’s pink lips in a puff of steam. Each letter was breathy and loaded, "I wish to lie with you."

The king’s face wasn’t close to his, but he could almost feel his breath burn hot on his cheek. He gulped and was sure the intense royal could hear it from where he was standing. 

Canute rolled his tongue over his lips again, the spit slick pink catching in the candle light. Sut had never considered lying with a man before and it wasn’t unheard of throughout the ranks of norsemen. But he had always found the company of women more than satisfactory. And norsemen, more often than not, were brutish ugly things with heavy hands and scars not unlike his own. They grabbed and they took. They didn’t give. 

A second statement interrupted Sut’s rumination, "If that arrangement is agreeable with you, you will become my bedmate."

Canute may have been the king of the norsemen, but he did not look like one and the energy that surrounded him was significantly more subtle, but no less dangerous. But for a norseman- for any man, he was exceptionally beautiful.

Sut bit the inside of his cheek. 

Canute folded his arms over one another against his chest, "If you do not consent, I will find other work for you and like the others. You will have every right to buy your freedom if you wish to."

Sut had woken up in chains and then by sunset had been bathed and fed, wrapped in warm clean clothes and now he stood in the relaxed presence of a king. Despite all of this, Canute’s determination on his acceptance was definitely the weirdest part of his day. Why was the king so insistent on his consent? He could have just taken him if he wanted to do so and he very clearly wanted to.

The taller man blinked down at him in expectation. 

"The others?" Sut croaked but Canute ignored him. 

"If you choose yes I have rules in my chamber," Canute began to pace around the cluttered room."You will always go by the name _Thorfinn_ during your visits here."

 _Who the fuck is Thorfinn_ , he thought before realising he’d stopped paying attention. 

"You are not to talk to anyone about these visits outside of those whom I also see," Canute stopped his light pacing to check he was listening, as if he already knew Sut had the attention span of a rodent. Sut blinked expectantly and sardonically.

"I do not wish to be addressed as your highness or king during these visits. And there will be no kissing on the lips," as Canute finished, he lifted his own charcoal tipped fingers to glance over the white scar over his cheekbone.

Sut nodded, he wasn’t sure about wanting to kiss this guy anyway. 

Canute’s voice grew from the sternness of a teacher addressing rowdy students to something a little kinder and tinged with pride,“There will be rewards for this arrangement for you too. Your chambers will be comfortable and you will never go hungry.” 

Sut thought about nodding but decided to just stand silently. 

“Do you understand Sut?” Canute pushed, patience clearly wearing thin. 

He could feel his eyes threaten to roll back into his head, “I’m not a fucking idiot. Of course I understand.” 

He wasn’t too sure on his own conviction in that statement but it at least seemed to satisfy the blue eyed man until he asked,“What is your answer?” 

“It’s obviously yes,” Sut spat out before he was entirely aware he was producing intelligible words. 

“You don’t need to think about it?” Canute stepped forward a little as if he hadn’t heard what Sut had said. 

“What’s the other option?” He crossed his arms, the slightly too small fabric pulling over his biceps, “Shovel shit in the stables for the rest of my life?” 

Canute’s eyes were narrow and the once comforting ring of gold around his eyes now cast insidious shadows over his eyes. Sut wasn’t sure if another one of his boys had ever questioned his paper thin generosity before. He’d given him a clear choice between a warm bed and whatever punishment Canute could think of for the man that turned him down. He was a big enough idiot to get captured and sold into slavery, he wasn’t a big enough idiot to turn down the possibility of freedom in the future. Sut’s choice was made for him the second Canute cut those bounds. 

“If that’s what gets you to sleep at night,” he hissed, eyebrows raising behind shaggy hair.

Canute looked taken aback for a second and his suspicions seemed to have been confirmed, nobody had questioned this _generosity_ of his before. He was a smart man. How could a man this smart be blindsided into thinking that any slave truly had a hand in his own fate?

“I am the king, I can choose to do whatever I see fit -”

“What happened to no king talk, pretty boy?” 

Canute’s face melted from perturbed to sasciated, like he thrived on the venomous words Sut spat at him. Stepping backwards, he placed himself against the desk again, green silk pooling at his hips. He beckoned Sut over and he walked over until blue and brown eyes were almost level with one another. 

“Have you ever been with a man before?” Canute’s voice was slick, like his throat had been lubricated with oil. 

Sut ran his teeth over his bottom lip, pressing at the sensitive skin there. By the way that Canute had touched him so delicately there earlier in the day and by the way his bluebell eyes travelled intensely with the movement, he knew at least one way to get Canute hooked. 

“You are pretty enough, I guess,” he purred. He could feel himself transform from Sut to whoever Thorfinn could be by the time the sentence had finished. 

Canute mused upon that statement. He didn’t muse for long as he was probably entirely aware of his beauty, like it was the only thing he was entirely aware of his whole life. He hummed, raking his eyes down the fur and linen clad slave, “Has your insolence got you far in life before?”

“No. But you seem to like it, so I may be on the up.”

By the way Canute’s lips pulled at the edges, Sut had found his second way to get him hooked. 

“Let me see your chest,” Canute commanded, leaning out from his hands on the desk. 

Sut leaned in cautiously before Canute pushed him back with two long fingers pressed onto his sternum and Sut was sure Canute was about to laugh at him.

“With the shirt off you, fool”

Historically, Sut didn’t do so well with being laughed at. But also, historically, he hadn’t done so well with wanting to flirt with men. Today was a new day and Sut was a new man. At least he was in front of the king. He pulled off the top part of his clothes and he did so slowly in the way that his comrades had always talked about the way they’d want beautiful girls to do.

He caught the way Canute’s apple bobbed when he threw the clothes to the floor. The sounds of the sleeping hold swathed the room in ambience as the air thickened and Canute’s legs uncrossed. 

“You’ve fought a lot,” Canute’s eyes explored Sut’s body, as he hadn’t been able to see it up close at the marketplace. 

Sut looked down at his own body and noted how the scars almost began to glow in the low candle light, “Either that or I’ve been really fucking clumsy.”

Canute lifted a hand and motioned his fore and middle finger for Sut to come closer. Sut stepped into the open palm, and like earlier Canute ran his fingers across his skin. Delicate and careful touches made short work of making Sut’s skin shiver and hairs prickle. Light touches formed into something more heavy as Canute wrapped his hand around Sut’s waist and pulled him sharply closer. As Sut jolted to a halt in front of Canute, he ran his thumb over the curve of one of his stomach muscles. 

Then, he ghosted his hand upwards over the ridge of his well formed chest and across to his shoulder, relishing the feel of each scar on the way. Once he had reached his shoulder he waited, his hand resting on the dip between his shoulder and tricep. Sut flexed out again, secretly knowing the way that Canute’s eyes lit up when he felt the firm muscle. His palm travelled downward further, enjoying the way each scar stood out even more starkly against the more tanned skin. He paused over one of his messiest scars, a star shaped arrow wound and drew to those florid plump lips of his. 

With his mouth on Sut, Canute looked upward, his eyes glistening. He moved his lips downward, raking them across the ridged skin until he reached the bone of his wrist where he placed a light kiss. Holding Sut’s hand in his own, he rubbed his thumb across his palm and over the calloused creases and hills that adorned it. He pushed at the bottom joints, causing Sut’s fingers to gently rise. After carefully bringing Sut’s hand to his face and keeping seering eye contact as he did so, he ran the other man’s fingertips to his lips. 

The sensation sent shivers down Sut’s body, it took awhile for him to collect his thoughts and fully understand the situation. His fingers were gently tracing the king’s mouth. He was just about ready to see a reindeer walk in on its hindlegs and start talking to them. He had to be dreaming, this was the most bizzare thing he’d ever experienced, that was until the king took each of those fingers and gently sucked them into his mouth. 

The sight was obscene, those pink lips curling around his fingers, powder blue eyes and golden lashes looking up at him like it was the most innocent thing in the world. Everything from the waist down suddenly grew very hot as he stood. Sut’s finger was lax and warm inside Canute’s mouth as he gently raked his top teeth against it, until Canute sucked in a second finger and that was when Sut just about lost all control of the situation. Sut crooked those two fingers inside the King’s pink mouth and Canute sucked one last time before letting the furled fingers fall from his lips. 

Sut could feel his eyes were hooded and heavy as they followed his slowly slipping fingers against the king’s mouth. The bristles of his blonde beard startled him enough for him to realise that Canute had changed positions.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Sut asked, devoid of any snark that had seemed to win him favour earlier. 

Canute began pulling at the lacing on his breeches, “What does it look like?” and slid from the side of the desk and onto the floor in front of him.

“Like you’re about to suck my dick-”

“Do we have a problem, Thorfinn?” He peered up expectantly, his face level with the leather lacing. 

He paused before hesitantly shaking his head. 

Canute made quick work of the lacing like he’d done it a thousand times, even at the odd angle. Sut’s length was revealed and Canute took a hold of it quickly and efficiently and rubbed his soft palm along the shaft before teasing his thumb at the leaking head. Sut could feel how hard he was just by the feel of Canute’s hand around him. Sure, Canute’s display was sexy, but he was still a guy after all. Clearly his dick had taken to this whole, becoming Thorfinn thing much faster than his brain had. 

Canute swiped again, this time to reveal a trail of precome clinging to his thumb that glistened in the candle light. Sut successfully stifled the moan that had spent the last ten minutes building in his throat and Canute looked up at the whole situation with a look so endowed with understanding it would be irritating, if he wasn’t so handsome. 

“Are you alright?” Canute asked as he gave Sut a couple of well timed pumps.

Canute knew Sut was okay, he knew he was more than okay, he was just being a bastard. So, Sut sneered and looked away in apparent disinterest. And retrospectively, that was where his plan was clearly off to a terrible start. As, that was when Canute wrapped those plump lips that he’d spent the entire night pretending he hadn't been starting at around his tip, and everything went hazy for a few seconds.

Sut had felt many things in his life. Most of them were a plethora of middle of the line sensations that he’d mostly forgotten he’d experienced. He’d felt his fair share of awful things too. The feel of a blade sliding against his exposed flesh or the sounds of children crying as fire engulfed around their village. But good things. Truly good things that made his skin goose his heart swell, they were few and far between. There was one time when he was a child. When the sun rose above the treetops and the hum of peace filled the air and his mother’s hands carded through his hair. Then, he’d truly felt like something beautiful was happening and again now, with Canute licking a long strip from the base of his length to the very tip. This was one of the few times he’d felt truly and honestly transcendental. 

He didn’t dare look down from the fear of what he might see and his body’s reaction to it. He scrunched his eyes tightly and tried to keep his breathing even. Then, seemingly in response to his mental distancing Canute hooked his hand around his bare ass and pulled him in closer. As he could feel the swollen end of his cock brush the back of Canute’s throat, the only self control he could manage was not bunching his hand in Canute’s hair and pushing himself down deeper into him. So the dark part of his brain simply settled for a moan that was so guttural he was sure someone in a neighbouring house could hear it. 

He cracked one eye open, at some attempt at watching the event that felt like being carried into Valhalla on the wings of Valkyrie play out in front of him. He looked downward into the blonde hair that was currently fisted in his left hand. The head bobbed expertly in rhythm and Sut tried to steady himself on the air behind him, causing him to wobble and subsequently caused Canute to take a firmer grip of his ample ass cheek. The pressure from behind was a somewhat welcome distraction for a second and he was able to catch his breath. That was until Canute looked upward, tears spilling in messy flurries from powder-blue eyes, pink lips taut around his cock. Sut’s cock twitched violently in his mouth and if he could have done,he’s sure Canute would have smiled. 

He closed his eyes to collect his thoughts again and to pretend that Canute wasn’t Canute. That maybe he was the redhead he’d met earlier that night. However, the scrape of his slightly chapped lips and the force of his hand on his ass that had begun to stroke absently at his hole, made that nearly impossible. But he didn’t care, really. 

After Sut had collected his thoughts he could manage to watch Canute collect the pool of Sut's precome in the back of his throat and he even managed to see the outline of his length move down the length of Canute's swan like neck. But that last visual was simply too much and Sut ended up spilling ribbons into the Emporer of the North Sea’s throat, like it was some kind of erotic nightmare. 

Canute removed his mouth with an elongated lick of his tongue. Sut shivered at the over stimulation and Canute simply wiped at his mouth and sat down at his desk, as if he hadn’t just given Sut the closest thing to a religious experience he’d ever had. 

With his back turned, he simply announced, with a quick flick of his wrist, “That’s all, Thorfinn.”

For the first time in the evening, and perhaps his life, something comes to mind and he doesn’t say it. He turned and stepped from the King’s study to find the same girl as before, peering at him expectantly from her slightly elevated height.

Sut had never been good at hiding his emotions, and that became abundantly clear when the girl’s reaction morphed into quiet amusement and his face grew hot enough that the Danish cold barely bit at his nose. 

She carefully placed a hand on his shoulder and nudged him forward. 

“Your quarters are this way” 

“Hmph”, he’d never had quarters before, this day was just one weird experience after the next.

“They’re really quite lovely, Canute treats you well,” she muttered whilst rubbing her hands together. He pondered for a moment if she’d been stood outside Canute’s study and heard his entire, _auditory display_ earlier. 

“I-” 

Before Sut could answer they’d reached another building, nothing more than a stone’s toss by a man with a good arm’s away from the king’s housing. 

  
  


She knocked on the door and then opened it wide, nodding for Sut to enter,“Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” he responded as he walked through the door.

The first thing he was faced with was an ambiently lit, round room, edged by private quarters, littered with soft furnishings and furs and a raging fire pit in the centre.

The second thing was a hall of mirrors.

“Oh new guy,” a freckled mirror spoke, standing from his position beside the fire, clothed in a fine tunic and silver accented belt. He placed his hands on his hips and looked at Sut, cocking his head to the side in interest. 

A mirror with his head buried in a book peered upwards with keen interest, blonde hair like his own but with a curl was tucked behind his ears. He raised his book in a heavily scarred hand in quiet greeting. 

There were two more, huddled in deep conversation at the furthest point of the room. They looked up at him, with two sets of owlish eyes. He couldn't see them from here, but he could make a guess that they were the same tawny as his own. One of those sets was encircled with dark bags and the others darted between the other owl and Sut, before he broke into a smile, those eyes crinkling in the corners. 

The freckled mirror stepped forward until Sut could see they were almost exactly the same height. 

"I need to sit down," Sut mumbled shakily, to the clear glee of the freckled reflection. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	2. All The King's Men

**_All The King’s Men_ **

****

* * *

**_Chapter 2: All The King’s Men_ **

“Sut, I need those clothes back,” the girl poked at Sut's shoulder. He barely registered the hesitant movement before she stepped away from him. 

“Oh, uh sure,” he responded, still aghast by the whole situation. 

He removed the top block of his clothes with ease, having forgone relacing any of it after his session with the King. After kicking off the boots with little care he shimmied out of the trousers, like the top half, they were unlaced, only being held up by the tightness around his thighs. 

The mounds of material were then thrust into the maid’s hand and boots kicked in her direction before he began leaning down to take off the socks.

“Keep those-”

Sut nodded satisfied, whilst the hall of mirrors glared at him, with an amalgam of horror, intrigue and confusion. 

“Dipshit!” the voice came from the back of the room, “I don’t wanna see your dick!” 

Despite his very loud protests, the sunken-eyed man strode forward until he was standing next to the freckled man, giving him the same kind of intense glare. He could feel both sets of prying eyes raking over his body. He was regretting stripping off so readily now, he’d never been met with such scrutiny before. 

The freckled man moved in even closer, his judgment filled gaze picking at his flesh like a child pulling apart a dead bird, just to see what it was made of, “I wanna see it, I wanna see what we are up against.”

The tired eyed man's gaze was different, it waned from disinterested to the same kind of interest the King had shown him earlier. He shoved an elbow into the freckled man's side, “When was the last time your dick was useful to you?”

Sut’s hands moved over his penis as he tried to analyze what the tired man was insinuating. His mind instantly cut to the worst possible scenario when he caught the freckled man smirking at the other resident.

“Is-” He paused as he tried to gather the right words to express the building terror in his head and the cold sinking feeling behind his groin,“Do they cut it off?” 

The freckled man rolled his lips into one another, hiding a smirk, “No, didn’t you get the impression that the King is rather fond of that area of a man?”

The ever so slightly taller, sunken-eyed man just burst into laughter.

“It was a fair question!” He hissed and elbowed the tired man who was leaning into him, trying to get a look at the back of his body.

He stepped back with an appreciative look, “Sut has a nice ass, even better than yours English!”

English, who still resided in the corner of the room, simply rearranged the formation of his fingers holding up the book until his middle finger was proudly on display against the leather. 

As the tired man stuck out his hand to grab a feel, Sut jumped away with an incredulous look upon his face - if he didn’t need his hands to cover the dignity that was hanging by a string, he’d have given that man two real black eyes.

“Lurch!” Freckles smacked him in the shoulder.

Lurch shrugged, very clearly undeterred by Freckles’ scolding. 

He assumed that, like himself, all the other boys in the King’s secret club were in it for the riches, Freckles in his silken robe definitely fit that bill. But this Lurch guy and his wandering eyes seemed to get a little more enjoyment out of this entire situation than just watching Sut squirm in his skin. 

The smallest of the men, who had been sitting with Lurch earlier made his way over to the triplets, “Don’t you have any other clothes?” His voice was quiet and level and when he shot a warning look over to Lurch, his wandering eyes were suddenly leashed. 

“I had a tunic but it was disgusting, I’m assuming someone burnt it,” he shifted uncomfortably in his skin.

Freckles raised his eyebrows, “Ah you should have hung on to that." 

Sut gave him a confused look, a look that had become a somewhat permanent fixture on his face since this morning.

"No mind," Freckles waved the comment down.

There was a harsh slap from the other side of the room and everyone’s eyes turned to face the man in the corner, "For crying out loud someone give him something to wear!" he held his book in his scarred hand and pointed it towards the group.

Of what Sut could make out, he seemed to have the oldest version of their shared face.

"He'll stretch anything I give him," the quiet one mumbled in response to English’s commands. 

"Well there's three other people in this room, figure something out!" his arms were now crossed as he stood in front of the now vacant pile of pillows. Despite only being in this room for less than twenty minutes, that nook of the room being devoid of the wavy haired man seemed wrong, especially when he’d left a pile of scrolls and books in his wake. 

He walked up to the group encircling the naked new boy and as he’d arrived, Freckles had made his way to one of the adjoining rooms and all but dived behind the wool curtain. 

“Hey that’s my stuff!” Lurch protested. 

The man from the corner seemed to finally get a good look at Sut and then back to Lurch, “You’re the biggest, he’s only going to fit in your stuff,” 

“You’re the tallest!” He protested again. 

“Height is very obviously not the issue here”

Sut felt every single muscle in his body under scrutiny. He’d never been made to feel so small by men at his exact height before. But then, he’d never had a King suck his dick either, the day was full of firsts that he never saw coming. 

Freckles returned with one of Lurch’s tunics bundled in his hand, it was similar to the one Lurch was wearing himself, it was made of undyed cloth and aside from the fact it didn’t smell rancid, it was simple enough it could have belonged to a slave.

He paused internally. Despite everything that had happened today, he was still a slave and it would be dangerous for the fine silk of Freckles’ tunic and the feeling of a warm stomach make him forget that. 

"Thanks,” He took the cloth and pulled it over himself, feeling tension loosen from his shoulders in relief of not having to hold that same position any longer.

There was a lull as everyone waited for the next person to speak, Sut could tell by the way that each of them shifted with a quiet discomfort, the silence wasn’t something the bunch of them were exactly used to. 

So he decided to break the silence just to bring some life back into the four sets of eerily similar eyes, "What's everyone's problem?"

“What?” the smallest of the men spoke hesitantly as if he wasn't used to being the one to answer questions. 

"Well you're the competition aren't you?" Lurch sneered.

"Competition for what?" Sut asked, he could feel his eyes were widening, he'd always loved competition. 

Lurch scratched at the shell of his ear, "Who gets the most of the King's come inside his ass."

The shortest man pinched at the soft skin on the inside Lurch's bicep. 

"Lin!" Lurch cried with a wolfish grin pointed at his tiny colleague. 

If Sut had been given a second to think, he would have thought about the way his face looked in response to that. Because by the way his mouth had gone dry and he could taste the smell of the burning firewood, his jaw was clearly hanging agape in shock, like a blunt blow had knocked it off its hinges. He closed his mouth and waited for it to feel normal again as he could feel his heart pounding in his throat. 

Lurch placed a consolidatory hand on his shoulder, it felt out of place, but then he hardly knew the guy. 

"It was a crude way of saying it but Lurcher is right." Freckles chirped, turning around from his spot on the floor. Sut hadn’t noticed him leave them, he was too busy silently praying to a God he didn’t believe in until he began two minutes ago. 

"Lurcher," Sut tested the name on his tongue and ran his eyes over the man again. Of all the men in the obscure hall of mirrors, Lurcher and Sut looked the most alike. They both stood around the same height and had the same frames. However, whereas Sut’s frame was built up with muscle Lurch lacked that, he looked lithe and fast under all that, if Sut was a bull Lurch was a hare. Lurch’s face was weathered, but not with scars or sun-like his own, but from time, the time had marked him with heavy dark circles around his eyes and skin that had grown thin. His face was littered with patches where it had thickened slightly with sunburn. There were deep lines in his forehead where he’d spent too long worried, with his eyebrows pinched, stealing what youthfulness he had left on his face. However, there were more lines, thinner ones, where his eyes creased and his mouth grinned. Those seemed fresh, happiness seemed new on Lurch.

"That's your name?" Sut asked again.

"Mmhmm," he squeezed his shoulder and proceeded to join Freckles on the floor. He’d begun to drape a wool blanket over his silk-clad shoulders, which had just begun to exacerbate how narrow they were in comparison to his own. 

"You're Sut I'm presuming," Freckles curled his legs beneath him like a dog settling in for the night. 

"How'd -"

"We've all been Sut at one point," he interrupted before diverting his eyes towards the tallest man in the group, "Asides for English"

"Who's that?"

"They guy who thinks he's better than everyone else because he can read some squiggles on a page." Freckles grinned over at English, who had just fetched his book from the nook and sat himself down with Lin and Lurch, who seemed to be somewhat inseparable. 

English made a ‘ _pft_ ’ sound and opened his book in his lap and leaned forward slightly to catch the light from the fire, "I'm really jealous of you guys not being able to read."

Freckles extended his arms and extended every finger and during the lull in the conversation Sut could faintly hear his joints pop, "Well I don't think being a scholar exactly fits the kind of image we are all trying to cultivate does it?"

English looked up from his book, placed his hand on the page he was clearly pretending to be reading and shot the freckled man a look of playful indignation. 

Freckles and English, who both probably have names other than the one being used to describe something very obvious about them, seemed the most comfortable here. 

Freckles with his rich fineries that blended into the vibrant soft furnishings of the room, looked like a man who served the King. His hair was slightly lighter and more silken than the rest of theirs, especially English’s whose hair if cut short would sit in messy curls. He wore it longer too brushing at the blanket wrapped around his shoulders. Shoulders that Sut guessed to have the same nebulous freckles that covered his face and hands. There was something very poised about this man, like if someone had told Sut that the man had been born a royal he would have had no problem believing them. He’d noticed he’d moved around the lodging on lighter feet than all of them, despite their similar size. He spoke carefully, with a low voice that he recognized to have an accent not too dissimilar to the King himself. It seemed that Freckles had spent so long around the King, the young royal had bled into him. 

  
  


English, who’s English accent was more of a feature to his voice rather than a defining characteristic, had clearly been here a long time too. But unlike Freckles, who seemed at home in a palace, blending into the finaries like he was one of them, but because he entirely didn’t. English, with his shaggy blond waves and hunched shoulders, seemed out of place but still behaved entirely comfortable. Like a blonde child fostered by black haired parents. After Sut had noticed the books, which seemed just as out of place as the Englishman, he noticed the heavily scarred hand that held them. His right hand was covered in white scars from his fingertips to his wrist. They weren’t scars like Sut’s own, they were thick white spider’s webs on the man’s hand. 

They weren’t battle scars, they were scars of a punished slave and they made Sut’s stomach churn as he finally took a seat to the right of English.

He stared down at the hand, in the exact way his mother had taught him not to stare. English furled his fingers into a fist as if to hide what he could look at. Instead, the white scars stood out stark on the stretched skin, like the aurora borealis on a clear night. 

"You're really filling out that tunic," Sut looked up to face Freckles’ voice, his eyes had whipped from Sut’s eye line to the fabric stretched over his shoulders, "I doubt Canute's tastes are changing." 

“What do you think it is?” Lin asked as he stood to add another log to the fire. 

“I’m not sure,” Postulated Freckles, he ended the sentiment with a casual shrug before changing the subject, “So Sut-”

“It’s the scars”, English stated, finally closing his book. A nervous lump formed in Sut’s throat. 

"How'd you know that?" Lin chirped from his vantage point, terribly unaware of Sut’s internal panicking. 

"Do you have any scars?" English asked calmly. Sut wasn’t sure if that tone made him feel better or not. 

Lurch held up his left hand to reveal a small scar across his palm, "I've got this one from when I got some pot stuck in my hand."

English laughed and shook his head, sending some of the curls tucked behind his ear free," And I have scars," he held up his right hand with a sense of hesitant pride, “if those were the right kind of scars this guy wouldn't be here would he?"

The rest of the group nodded, except for Freckles who seemed to have really known the answer all along. 

Lin sat down again and looked over the bare skin on Sut’s arm, "Did you fight?"

"Yeah I went Viking for a couple of years with Toke Haakonsson.”

"Hmm makes sense," Freckles nodded at Lin and then at the rest of the group, "He clearly likes the scars."

Lurch jabbed an elbow in Lin's side "I'll slice you up!" 

English's tone was grounded, if not a little tired, "No you won't."

A smile bloomed over Freckles' face as he rolled the ring he'd slipped off between long fingers. He gestured toward Lin, the gold ring dangling loosely around the first knuckle, "And you, you're training right?"

He mouthed a _'yes'_ at the finger.

Freckles clasped his hands together and rubbed, " _He_ was clearly a warrior of some kind"

"Who's _he_?" Sut asked.

The interjection was met with four sets of eyes with varying degrees of confusion and embarrassment layered over each pair.

"The man whose face we all share?" Freckles stated, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

It wasn't obvious to Sut. The King could just have a type, there was a guy back home who'd only look at tall girls with curly hair and dark eyes. It wasn't all that clear that they were all supposed to be the same guy. 

"Or are you too dumb to notice?" Lurch jeered, shark smile leaning forward to catch a glimpse of Sut in those teeth. 

Sut leaned in to match Lurch’s lazy intensity, "I just didn’t think I was that ugly."

Lurch stood and used what little height he had to his advantage. Again, he had no idea what was going on. He gazed around at the other boys, who didn’t seem to react at all. Even, Lin who’d spent the entire evening pulling at Sut’s sleeves, willing him to stop whatever he’d started, simply gazed at the blanket tossed over his knees with such interest he could be counting the threads.

Lurch stepped forward again, his presence not threatening to Sut. Simply just another weird thing in this day of weird things. 

Sut rose and stood eye to eye with Lurch, “You’re definitely the ugliest.”

Lurch grinned in response, it wasn’t the same shark smile as before, this one was filled with genuine glee. Before Sut could feel anything in response to that Lurch had slammed his fist straight into Sut’s jaw.

He stumbled backward but didn’t fall, his extra weight and fighting experience being very evident. The throbbing quickly set into his jaw and he lunged forward, pinning Lurch to the ground. He held him between his thighs, one hand on his shoulder the other poised to land a punch. And as quickly as they’d hit the ground Lurch grabbed his stabilizing hand and flipped them both.

Sut wriggled under Lurch’s grip, his musculature about to make short work of the smaller man’s position until a boot approached and made its way into Lurch’s side.

They both stared at the boot and then looked up at the owner. English peered down at them scornfully, at the most unflattering angle.

He folded his arms over on another, "Save that energy for Canute you fools."

"Are you being serious?" At this point, Sut wasn’t sure what was real or not. He relaxed and let Lurch’s weight settle on top of him. 

Lurched nodded earnestly from his vantage point, "No he's being serious, I spat at him one time and I think he almost came in his pants." 

Sut sat up, sending the no longer taut Lurch sliding down him, Sut turned towards the wider group for clarification, "Is that true?" 

Lin was the first to respond, "Yeah, I don't see him much though, but I've heard-" 

"What are you doing wrong then?" Sut interrupted.

There was a groaning from the floor and as Sut looked down there was a dull thud in his calf, "Hey watch it." His tone was finally something that matched the punches he threw, gone was the jovial prodding, it was replaced with something far sterner.

"It's just a question!"

Lurch rolled onto his back and folded his arms and with his hair splayed around his head like this he almost seemed angelic, Sut wondered if he too looked like that in that position. He’d never thought of himself as soft or pretty before.

"Well you don't have to be such a dick about it," Lurch spat, ruining the illusion entirely. 

"Well for someone who's been called a dick a lot in his life that was a very undickish way of saying that," Sut raised his eyes at Lurch who was clearly making a bed for himself on the floor, he didn’t seem to bothered about changing his mind. So instead he turned to Lin, who was the reason for this whole conversation in the first place, "I could have said you're clearly doing a shit job."

Lin was hurt. He hadn’t known the guy for more than an hour but he could tell that comment had poked at him like the sharp end of a dagger just beneath his rib cage. Lin wasn’t the smallest of them, that position had been taken by Freckles, but he sure made it seem that way. Whenever Lurch wasn’t hovering by his side, like a slightly larger and uglier conjoined twin, Lin held himself like he was trying to take up as little space as possible. Cautiousness hovered in his eyes like he wasn’t sure how to be looked at, in the little he’d known about the King, he could tell that kind of behavior wouldn’t exactly be favorable. It was a shame that he carried himself in this way like the years had pushed him beyond cautious, when he was unguarded he became a shell. A shell with eyes that threatened to be beautiful if given the chance. 

Lin picked at his tunic, "That's uncalled for."

"What?" Sut shrugged, hoping to poke the man inside the shell, "The King said if I earn enough, I can buy my freedom." 

He paced over to the other side of the pit, toward English and Freckles, leaving Lin and Lurch in his footsteps, "And I want to do that as soon as possible, I don't plan on being that guy's cum rag for very long!" He laughed at his own joke and he could hear, amongst his efforts to stand, that Lurch was laughing too. 

He was suddenly faced with the stern face of the Englishman, "Don't talk like that, you're a slave and you're in a warm house, with clean clothes and food every day, just fucking watch your mouth new guy." The air suddenly became very thick, like someone had insulted English’s mother. He wasn’t sure how slavery worked in England, and by the look of it, English had been a slave for a long time, be it here or overseas. But he’d never seen someone get so adamantly defensive about a slave owner before - even against owners who seemed to understand their slaves were human. 

Freckles finally broke English’s stare with some carefully placed words, "It could be way worse." 

Freckles was the diplomat, every group of slaves had one. The slave who could tender a conversation between the hot-headed Lurches who started fights just to lose them and the quietly intense Englishmen whose motivations who seemed to be enigmatic at best. But if there was one thing Sut knew, he never found himself favoring the far side of the diplomat. He’d always found it easier to stay in the mud with the Lurch’s to climb the ivory tower, only to be pushed out of it. 

"Yeah, I know," he sighed in Freckles’ direction, which seemed to placate him and English, at least for now. 

He decided to push it one step further, and the King didn’t mention not discussing their sessions with the other men in this room, and what he’d just experienced was something to discuss, if not brag about, "At least I'm doing a good job so far, the King, he gave-"

"You a blow job," Freckles stated, with as little emotion he could possibly muster, which sent Lurch into an aggravating simper. 

"We heard you" Lurch retorted, that stupid fucking giggle in the back of his throat was about to earn him a real fight. 

"No you didn't!" Sut barked into the room, the hasty statement bounced off the wooden geometric walls. There was a _poof_ sound as Lin and Lurch had found themselves back amongst the cushions, looking so immediately cozy he wasn’t sure if they were really human and not kind of cushion/man hybrid, finally returning to the homeland after a long war. 

"How did you know?" he spat, knowing that his poorly contained groans from the King's touch were loud but probably not loud enough to reach this residence. Probably. 

Freckles shook his head at his discomfort, trying to hide his amusement, "He gave us all one when we arrived," he shot a look to the curly-haired man who’d gone to return his book to his little corner of the round room, "other than English," he added, to no response. 

"He dishes out blow jobs all the time?" his response was meek, disheartened even, not that he’d tell any of these men that. 

A hum came from the pile on the cushions followed by a smirk, "Sometimes."

And just as Sut was getting his head around being fucked by the King of the Vikings, he was thrown this curveball, maybe the King’s tastes ran in _that_ direction, "Does he let us fuck him?"

And just as quickly as his excitement began to fly the nest, English shot the baby bird down with one direct arrow, "No fucking way, are you mad?"

"S'just a question," he shrugged, trying to hide his own disappointment. 

"A dumb one," 

"I guess he's pretty enough," he resigned. 

"You should have seen his father," Freckles sneered.

"Why? Was he more attractive-" Freckles suddenly cracked out into a grin and waved at English, who enthusiastically returned the motion. "Why are you laughing?" Sut pouted. 

English flopped down on the cushions, "Yeah Sweyn Forkbeard was prettier than Canute."

They all looked amongst each other like he’d just said the stupidest thing in the world. Sure the King was attractive and there were worse men to be railed by on the regular, but he was still a man. 

Freckles edged his elbow into English’s side, "He used to be even prettier, right English?"

The cold look that had been returning to the man's face intermittently throughout the evening made a fleeting appearance once more, before it left again, as quickly as it appeared, "Mmhmm, he had long hair, lost the beard every now and then." 

That was something that caught Sut’s attention. The King was handsome, but losing the beard and long hair? That would have made him downright beautiful. Not a man seemingly fit to rule the Vikings, but one he’d have been more than happy to service every now and again, "He used to have long hair?! Damn, I wish he had that now, I could pretend he was a broad then."

"How are you gonna pretend he's a broad with his dick in your ass?" 

Sut didn’t look where the voice came from, he knew by the contents of the sentence that it could have only come from Lurch. He hoped for a second it had come from Lin, so he looked over at the two of them, only to find Lurch sneering expectantly at him. 

Sut shrugged and sat down again, "Does the King see anyone else?"

English responded, "Just us, as far as we know."

The King could see anyone he wanted in the entire north sea Kingdom, why stop at the five of them? He momentarily thought back to the girl who had shown him around earlier and a warmth tightened across his chest, "Not that pretty redhead girl?"

English’s eyes grew wide, "Don't even start."

"Why?"

His eyes then grew stern, "She doesn't work for Canute, she works for Emma's court and the last person to be embroiled with both Emma and Canute ended up in the ground."

Sut suddenly became very still as an intense fear washed over him. He’d let himself believe, in the King’s calm words and in Freckles’ fineries and the warmth of these quarters that he was safe here. He fixated on English’s scarred hand and the thoughts of how Canute gave him that scar raced through his head. 

English could clearly see the stiffening discomfort in Sut. 

"Look,” English shook his head and his surprisingly deep voice made everyone in the room’s ears prick, “He's not going to hurt you." He held his right hand upwards at the elbow and flexed, "He didn't do this."

Sut, knew it was wrong to look at scars that weren’t clearly caused in battle still couldn’t look away. 

English folded the hand back into his lap, "You will never wear chains here and you won't be treated like you should, Sut."

Freckles’ with a focused tone, picked up where English left off, "But as you well know, he uses his mouth as a leash." 

Sut’s mouth was tacky and dry, both with the memory of the King’s leash and the nervousness that hammered through his system whenever English got that look in his eye, like he was a general and Freckles backed him up. He asked Freckles, the somewhat kinder of the intimidating duo, "How long have you been here?" 

"A few years,” he sighed and Sut looked down at his silken robes and rings across his fingers, “English has been here the longest."

"Why haven't you left?" He asked the two of them. He could feel Lin and Lurch’s presence creep up behind him like they wanted to know the answer too, but clearly, neither of them had been brave enough, or perhaps foolish enough to ask before. 

They both forego answering for a moment, Freckles seems comfortable in the silence, whereas English does not. 

'I've got nowhere to go," English mumbled, his command over the room suddenly lost.

"Oh," a voice appeared behind Sut’s head. It was the soft timbre of Lin, who’d he’d forgotten was in the room. 

There's an underlying solemness in the room for a moment, before English smiled tenderly with a sadness still pricking at his eyes, "The food's also good." 

A silence hung again, this time a little more tolerable than the last. 

"Welcome to the party Sut," Freckled leaned forward and rolled a piece of Sut’s short ashen hair between his fingers, "You should grow it a little longer, he likes it long."

Sut flinched at the soft contact.

"Please don't worry, for some reason, he treats us with kindness,"

"I don't care about that," Sut grumbled and moved his head away from Freckles’ exploring fingers.

There was a heavy and decisive knock on the door. A smartly dressed man appeared, with dark hair and small eyes. He couldn’t really tell if they were naturally that way or if he was just scowling at them all. 

"Freckles," he groaned. 

Freckles stood up quickly and bowed his head, "Sir."

They all seemed a little on edge at this man’s presence. 

He tensed up and squeezed around the scroll under his armpit, "You're up." 

Freckles nodded and stepped forward, scuffing up his neatly combed hair until it was over his face to the point Sut wasn’t sure he could see properly.

"Why are you fetching me Wulf?" he asked, clearly amused at the dark-haired man’s discomfort. 

"Spare me your questions," he pushed the same clothes Sut had worn earlier into his outstretched freckled hands. 

"English,” Wulf’s chin tilted upward and he pulled the scroll from its resting place and held it out, “The King wants you to proofread these documents."

English darted forward and took the documents carefully as he bowed his head, "Of course sir."

As Freckles left the door after the looming presence of Wulf, he cast his eyes over to English with a look that seemed to take years of knowledge to understand.

English, who was still standing upright, tightened his grip around the scroll jumped a little when Sut asked, "What's with the clothes?" 

"We haven't worked it out yet." English snipped and quickly made his way over to his corner of books in the round room.

Sut followed him, almost tripping over a wooden dagger. He stared at it for a moment and wondered what use that had in this room before proceeding to ask, "You've been here the longest, what do you know?" 

"Nothing useful," his tone remained short and he unfurled the scroll to find another nestled between its spirals and a tiny piece of paper at the center. He looked at the tiny piece first and a tiny smile pulled over his lips. 

Sut was determined to work out this guy and this situation, "Why aren't you in there?"

He didn’t look up when he answered, "Freckles is his favorite." 

"I guess loyalty means nothing to Canute-" Sut wasn’t interrupted by English’s voice, but rather by his movement. 

He tucked the tiny piece into a leather pouch that had been discarded by the piles of books and sat down with the largest scroll between his hands and a piece of charcoal between his left fingers.

He hummed, finally. "I'll let you test that theory out when I'm not around to see the ramifications."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the late posting, we've been going through some personal stuff, we hope to be back on track soon. Thanks for reading.


	3. The Englishman I

**_All The King’s Men_ **

* * *

**_Chapter 3: The Englishman I_ **

**_Autumn 1015_ **

For one of the last times in the year, the sun hung high in the sky, casting short shadows behind the men that worked on the boat around Canute. Everyday he stared at the sun, and everyday he watched it fall a little from its lofty perch as winter pulled it’s heavy darkness into the summer. He knew the sun was the same no matter where in the world he existed, be it Denmark or the torid sea, but the warmth already felt a little stronger as he stepped on English soil once again.

The first time Canute placed the crown upon his head, gravity did not follow. His neck did not ache under the weight of the gold. The dull ache only began to form when blood cascaded from his cheek as he watched his friend and lover, against the ground entangled in the arms of his new subjects, to be bound in the chains of a slave. And, ever since that day, the pain of the crown only got heavier. The crown was suddenly not just made from gold, it was made of blood and sinew of the men who had fought and died for it, it was made of solid iron and shattered bones. Today, the crown was heavier on his head now than it had ever been before.

He inhaled deeply as his gaze wandered to the small portside market that bustled with merchants, mostly consisting of foodstuffs and trading goods. With his eyes, he followed a man, with reindeer pelts thrown across his back, he was probably a merchant from Norway. The merchant all but staggered across the market, his small frame almost lost in the rivers of leather. Canute thought about sending one of his men over to help the merchant, who at his age probably would have taken it graciously. And just as he opened his mouth to call over one of his sailors to lend aid, the Norwegian passed a small slave line-up consisting of three men and one woman. The first three didn’t catch Canute’s eye but the fourth man did. 

Canute’s pulse hammered in his throat and his mouth went dry upon seeing the fourth man and his head of dirty blonde hair. At first he thought it was _him_ but the reasonable man within him tells him it couldn’t be, but that didn’t stop Sweyn’s voice from laughing in his ear when he strained his eyes to see the man’s face. Reason also did nothing when Canute’s feet began charging towards the small slave market, darting between coiled ropes and boxes of cargo. He could hear Wulf and Gunnar trailing behind him, both of their sizes no match for his dexterity. 

His feet didn't stop until he reached the market. As he stopped in front of the small blonde man, he waited for the burn to set in his lungs, but he couldn’t feel anything aside from the war-drum pounding in his chest. 

There _he_ was. 

Canute’s eyes locked with his through shaggy blonde curls.

Canute held his breath, and didn’t break eye contact with the man who shared Thorfinn’s face and flatly asked the seller, "The price, what is it?"

The slave was clearly nervous and squeezed his bound hands together, including one with fresh burns. 

"Uh, one geld" The slaver spoke with confusion, “but sir, I have much stronger men than this one, this one is only fit for women’s work!”

The wardrumming had reached his head and he could barely hear the seller’s statement, “What was-”

“One geld sir! A good deal for a man like this!”

Canute ignored the panic intestifying with every pound of the drum in his chest. He felt sick and blamed it on the low price for another man’s life. Without taking a moment to give the drums a chance to silence, he pulled his sword from its sheath, to a backdrop of gasps from the people around him. He grabbed the rope around the slave’s neck and slashed it with the kind of control he’d new thought he’d be capable of, but then again, right now he didn’t feel like he was the one in control of his body. A wave of euphoria crashed into him as the ropes cut and slackened and for a moment, he could convince himself that he had not only free’d Thorfinn, that he had never put him in chains in the first place. He took a breath to steady himself and then did the same to the binds on his wrists. 

Gunnar finally approached the small group of men, out of breath and confused. He shot a look toward the golden haired teenager. 

Canute turned to him, still holding the hilt of his sword, "Gunnar, pay this man."

Gunnar frantically ran his eyes over the slave and the sword in Canute’s hand and Canute calmly sheathed it. Canute inhaled deeply to prepare himself and then apprehensively placed his hand on the slave’s shoulder and began nudging him towards the harbour. The skin on Canute’s palm was alight and he felt like he could not draw a breath so long as he could feel that familiar warmth beneath his touch.

The slaver became flustered and barked, "Who do you think you are?!”

Canute ignored him and pushed toward his boat.

“Sir! Hey! Who do you-"

Canute grabbed the slave by his healthy hand and spat, with the utmost anger he could muster to the bewildered slaver, "The Bretwalda of England."

The slave just looked at him, amber eyes blown wide. 

Canute began to drag the short slave back to his ship so quickly that the shorter man’s feet could barely keep up. Canute had absolutely no idea what came over him, but as soon as he saw Thorfinn in the slave in the harbour, he knew he couldn’t leave him there in chains, he couldn’t leave Thorfinn in chains. 

After Canute had dragged the man the same route that he had taken to get to the market. He carefully tugged on the slave’s hand in the best direction to avoid the obstacles he’d narrowly missed. As they reached the boat and Canute’s cabin, hand in hand, Canute knew that a few of his men must have seen him dragging the slave with loose ropes still dangling around his hands and his neck into his cabin. He could feel a set of eye’s latching onto the two of them. If they’re smart they won't say anything, if they aren’t, that’s an issue to deal with at a later date.

As they made their way onto the deck and Canute shimmied the familiar looking slave into his sleeping quarters, he stared at his new companion as the midday sun streamed through the window. Suddenly, the notion that he’d just dragged another man into his quarters in broad daylight set in. 

Sweyn’s voice cackled ‘ _pathetic_ ’, in his ear and Canute tried his best to ignore it, despite wholeheartedly agreeing with his father. 

He motioned for the slave to sit down, still unsure what to do with the familiar stranger that he’d bought on impulse and guilt. 

“Hold out your hands,” Canute asked in English to the slave, trying his hardest to not make it seem like a command and the slave did so promptly with little hesitation as a clever slave would do. Averting his eyes from the coarse ropes for a moment, Canute swiped his dagger from his desk, often used for cutting meat and sliced his way through the rest of the binds. As he held the rope away from the slave’s bare skin, he brushed against it. His heart sputtered in his chest and his hands began to tremble. He focused on making short work of the binds and quickly, the haggard ropes dropped to the floor. 

With a held breath Canute touched at the newly uncovered rawness around the slave’s wrists. He tried to focus on what to do next but his heart was hammering in his ears to the point he could barely register the other man's shallow breaths. 

He composed himself and carefully pulled the rope away from his neck, focusing on not touching the skin there as he knew he wouldn’t be able to recover from that so quickly. Canute poised the dagger at the slave’s neck and with a quick flick, slashed the rope there too. The action left a red braid in its wake across the clammy skin. The track went over the lump in the slave’s throat, and as he swallowed, suddenly all Canute could think of was how that patch of Thorfinn’s skin felt when he once pressed his lips against it.

He knew he was acting foolish, that this was a sad attempt at righting the wrong he had done to Thorfinn, but he had done it anyway. Even though he wanted to _want to_ stop, he knew that the mere thought of leaving this boy was absolutely futile. 

“Are you hungry?” Canute asked.

The slave nodded and Canute began to head out of the door, still unsure if he was to look directly at the slave, “I-...I will return with food and something to dress your wrists and hand, wait here.” 

Canute entered the market again, this time with a hood raised, hoping to be more conspicuous than the last time he’d walked through. He’d just finished purchasing some cooked meat and bread when Gunnar finally caught up with him enough to speak. 

“Gunnar please fetch me some honey and warm water,” 

“Of course sir,” Gunnar bowed his head and wrung his hands and spoke the next words out of his mouth very cautiously, “The boy, where is he?”

Canute simply stated, “Whilst we are in England I will need a personal servant.” 

It was a good enough reason as any. He was sleeping in a small cabin on his boat, and he needed a small man to keep in his employ, someone larger would have simply taken up too much room. That’s what he was going to tell himself, and others when they would inevitably ask. 

Gunnar nodded again and kept his eyes from Canute’s face in slight discomfort, “I will have the honey and water sent to the boat.” He understood the discomfort, Canute was acting unpredictable. 

Canute made his way back to the boat as quickly as he could, in the familiar path that he’d trodden himself in the very limited time that he had been in England again and swung open the cabin door. Much to the shock of the slave, who was still standing in the centre of the room, despite Canute being gone for more than a while. 

Canute handed him the food with a steady hand that he had successfully managed to stifle the nervous shaking. The slave took the food in silence and Canute watched him eat awkwardly with his left hand, keeping the right out of sight. The slave still looked bewildered and ate slowly, despite probably being absolutely starving. 

Canute was staring and probably making the man wholly uncomfortable and he tried to peel his eyes away. Suddenly there was a flurry of knocks on the door. It was Gunnar, and he handed Canute the flasks of what he’d asked for, along with a large wooden bowl.

He craned his head slightly as he passed off the items to Canute, trying to get a better look inside the cabin.

“Thank-you Gunnar, that is all,” Canute said curtly and closed the door on the set of prying eyes. 

The slave was still looking at him and hadn’t uttered a word to him yet, not even a thank-you when Canute had given him the food. He eyed Canute cautiously and fidgeted in his tunic.“Sir, are you truly the Bretwalda of England?” he finally asked. Canute recognized the thick accent, the boy must've hailed from northern England. 

“Yes,” Canute said, noting how the slave stiffened immediately. “Show me your hands and wrists.”

The English slave stuck out his hands, the right being held a little closer to his body than the left and Canute motioned him to sit at his desk. 

The sound of water being poured into the wooden bowl filled the room, as did the sweet smell of honey. The slave held out his hands a little higher and Canute pulled out a trunk from beneath his desk to sit upon. 

Canute carefully took his left hand and washed the rope burn. The wound wasn’t deep, but sat over dark brown scars of years of friction burns from ropes long since gone. He let himself ponder if Thorfinn would add these scars to his collection too. Once Canute was satisfied, he motioned for his right hand and the slave obliged, somewhat hesitant. When the burned hand was lightly resting on Canute’s he submerged it into the bowl and the slave inhaled sharply through his teeth. 

“Can I ask?” the slave spoke, his voice tight with pain. 

Canute looked up, the height of the trunk putting him at eye level with the english boy.

“Why did you buy me?” he asked as he flexed his hand in the water, clearly getting used to the sensation of the sweet water against his ruined skin. 

Canute didn’t know how to answer, he wasn’t going to tell him the truth. 

But before Canute could dignify him with an answer he spoke again, “My hand, it will surely go gangrenous -”

Canute shook his head, “It won’t if we keep it clean, the wounds are bad but they are not deep.” 

Lifting the slave's hand cautiously from the water, Canute dried it with a rag and began to dress it, “I assume this is from a burn? Boiling water?”

“Yes sir, it was -”

“I do not wish to know how it happened.”

He truly didn’t want to know how it happened. The veil of illusion that this boy was Thorfinn was truly a thin one. The curls along with the accent and an extra few measures of height made believing that this boy was Thorfinn far more difficult up close that it was from across the harbour. But still, he felt an overwhelming pull towards him and wanted to see no harm come to him again. He could keep this boy safe even though he could not do the same for Thorfinn. 

Canute swallowed the sentiment building in his throat, “You will sleep in here.” 

He picked up a clean tunic of his own and handed it to the slave, “Also, wear this, the dirty clothes you are wearing will not help your wounds heal.”

The slave took the bundled tunic graciously.

“I will find you more suitable clothes soon.”

* * *

Canute’s months were filled with long days of politics. Navigating through the political landscape was harder than he initially thought it to be, especially when he intended on keeping the bloodshed of his own men down to a minimum at the Mercian border against Ethelred and his son, Edmund. Whenever he was away from the ship, he was always accompanied by Wulf or Gunnar. 

When Canute returned to the ship he was almost always accompanied by his English servant. At first, they didn’t interact much, aside from a few pleasantries here and there. Canute still hadn’t quite come to terms with what to do with the boy. The only firm decision he’d made was to buy him on that day, the rest were decisions he made when the situation called for them. 

So far, the slave’s usage had been what most slaves were used for, running errands and guarding the cabin whenever Canute was away. He performed those tasks promptly and well, so there was more than enough reason for Canute to keep him in his employ. Much to Wulf’s quiet disdain, Canute even had the slave serve Wulf every now and again. And despite knowing there was nothing to divert suspicion from currently, he knew that he had to be cautious at the moment, just in case.

Before Thorfinn he’d only been attracted to larger men, mostly with dark hair and broad chests, but Canute was truly attracted to the Englishman both despite and because of his resemblance to Thorfinn. He realized it the day that he’d brought him from the harbour when he looked at him sheepishly through dirty blonde curls. He noticed it when he handed him a new tunic to replace the one Canute had been loaning him and he pulled off Canute’s clothing with a bandaged hand. And he definitely noticed it when the slave’s eyes lingered upon him with kindness and interest, especially when he allowed himself to return the gaze, and after a few months of guilt, the warmth in the slave’s eyes wore him down. 

He enjoyed the little man’s presence though. With him he didn’t need to be The King, he couldn’t be just Canute either though. At least he could float between the two, and for a while that was enough.

* * *

After returning from his long visitation to Eadric at the border between Mercia and the Danelaw, Canute placed his hand on the cabin door and sighed into the touch. It had been many months since he’d felt this particular grain of wood under his palm. He pushed on the door with as much energy as his aching bones would allow. The door opened carefully to the scene of the Englishman sitting by Canute’s desk, hunched over an open book of English language Nordic tales with the oil lamp illuminating the room in a soft glow. 

The sight made Canute’s chest tight and he wondered if he’d ever seen his Thorfinn at peace like this. 

He stepped into the room. Canute was either quiet enough or the Englishman was engrossed enough to not notice the young Bretwalda entering. 

“It may have been a little presumptuous of me but I never thought a man in your position would be able to read,” Canute smiled and the Englishman’s head whipped up and Canute continued,“I know noblemen who can’t read.”

The other man panicked and slapped the book shut, “Oh, I’m sorry!” He drew away his hands as if the book was about to leap out and bite him if he let them linger any longer. 

Canute pinched his eyebrows together, the little slave probably didn’t realize it, but this cabin was his home too. Plus, the word ‘ _sorry_ ’ falling from Thorfinn’s lips was wholly out of place, “Don’t apologize to me.”

The Englishman's mouth parted in shock before he skittishly jumped to his feet, almost knocking the stool Canute had made for him backward.

Unfortunately, he still had a habit of snapping his hands readily to his sides when he addressed Canute directly. The only times Canute had seen him truly relaxed was when his brown eyes were still riddled with sleep. “I can’t really read properly,” he rushed, “I struggle a lot with new words. But I can work them out sometimes based on the words I already know-”

Canute was very impressed, even though it meant reminding him a little less of Thorfinn with every page The Englishman turned, “That is-”

“I can stop sir.” 

Canute unclipped his cape and threw it onto the bed, “No, don’t.”He then made his way over to the cluttered desk and ran his hand over the teal leather of the closed book and mumbled, “Is there anything I can help with?”

Both of the men waited in silence, Canute waiting for the other man to respond, and the Englishman probably waiting to wake up from a dream where the Bretwalda of England was offering him lessons in how to read.

Canute turned his head and looked at the slave through the strands of his golden hair. The sight he was met with was owlish and discerning. Especially because it was the exact same expression that Thorfinn had on his face when he’d seen something shocking. It was as endearing on this man as it had been on his lover a year ago. 

“It’s rude to-”

“A little rudeness has never bothered me,” Canute smiled tightly, despite truly wanting to let a grin stretch across his face. 

Canute pulled out his chair, that had been left undisturbed since he’d last been in the cabin. He forgoed wiping away the thin layer of dust on the wood, “Is this what you do all day when I don't assign you tasks? Read?”

He returned the smile with the same tight-lipped restraint, “I guess, I also play hnefatafl,” 

Again, Canute was impressed by the enigmatic Englishman, “Play with me.”

The tight-lipped smile pulled at his lips and it threatened to crease at his eyes, “I’m sure you’ll beat me, sir,”

“Call me Canute from now on, if you don’t leave my cabin very often you should at least talk to me without my fineries” 

“Okay Canute”

Canute’s chest swelled for a moment, upon hearing his name leaving Thorfinn’s lips once more. 

The Englishman sheepishly pulled the board and pieces from a chest at the end of Canute’s bed, as if he didn’t know exactly where he’d returned it. He set up the board, the black and white pieces in their formations. 

He pointed at the white diamond in the centre of the board and said, “I’ll let you play the king.”

“So you’re going to attack me then?”

“Only in this circumstance, I never learned how to use a sword”

Canute’s flirtatious intentions were suddenly replaced with intrigue as the Englishman slid his first piece along the board. 

After a few minutes of silent play, Canute studied the board absently as he formulated his next move to avoid capture by his companion’s pieces. The Englishman was actually fairly good at this, and Canute needed to concentrate. He almost went to twirl his shortened hair around his forefinger but instead drew a piece and slid it across his lips to help him focus. 

“Where did a man like you learn to read?” Canute asked, entirely out of the blue as he tried to concentrate.

The tapping of the Englishman’s pieces ceased upon hearing Canute’s absent-minded and completely out of character question. He looked up and was clearly waiting for Canute to follow suit. He didn’t but patiently ran the piece along his lip, waiting for a response. 

The Englishman inhaled and placed the black piece that he'd been rolling through his fingers on the board, “There was a monastery near my village and there were four monks who taught me and my older brother to read, as thanks to our father and eldest brother for saving them against Viking raiders. He accepted as he thought we oughta learn to read to become more useful than just fighters.”

Canute put the piece between his parted lips and then set it down, “Fighting is a noble pursuit.”

“If it’s nobler than reading why do you have all these books and only one scar?” The Englishman asked bravely and depending on how Canute was feeling, perhaps foolishly too. 

Canute then lifted his hand and rested his chin upon it, “With iron is not the only way to fight.”

The Englishman seemed to understand very quickly. Most of his men would not have taken such a statement, as a Viking without a sword was no man at all and yet, this man was more than satisfied with the response. And it made Canute want to dig a little deeper, against his better judgment and the silent rules he had set out for himself. 

“I will teach you to read, properly, if you’d like me to”

“You’re the _King_ ” The Englishman’s tone was halfway between a laugh and a scoff and was one of the ways that this man truly reminded him of Thorfinn. 

“Yes and the king can read properly and you can’t, the offer still stands,” Canute snapped, however, he still retained the jovial tone to his voice. 

“Yes,” he sighed, “Thank you.” 

The soft gratitude of the Englishman’s words hung between them, swathing them both in soft excitement.

Canute chewed at the inside of his cheek and against his better judgment, again he asked, “Where are you from?”

His eyes narrowed in response, and he spoke slowly, waiting for Canute to interrupt him after every letter, “England.”

“I could have guessed as much myself,”

The Englishman rolled his eyes, it was unknown to him if it was because of Canute's sarcasm or because of his own inability to understand the Bretwalda’s ability to be a bastard, “The northwest of England. The very west of Northumbria, by the sea. A village called Kilgrimol in Agmundr.”

The names were familiar to Canute, “That sounds Norse.”

“Aye, apparently it was founded by Viking settlers who came from west instead of the east.”

Canute had never heard of such a settlement but he was incredibly eager to learn more. By now, his entire better judgment had been completely cast aside, along with Sweyn’s snarling jibes. 

"My father and brothers were fishermen, shrimp mostly, so I'm used to being on boats."

"You do seem at home here," Canute laughed as he registered the sway of the boat beneath them both. 

The Englishman scoffed and absorbed Canute’s jab, "I've been in much worse places."

"As have I."

The softness in the returning smile was something he felt entirely unprepared for. It was the kind of smile that he’d spent an entire winter searching out in Thorfinn. He’d never seen it, once, he swore that he could feel it when their lips were pressed together, but by the time they’d pulled apart, it had gone. Canute wondered for a moment if it had simply been reborn in the Englishman. 

Canute’s chest tightened and he drew a long breath. Trying to distract himself, he picked up the Englishman’s bandaged hand that was resting on the desk just behind their forgotten game. 

"Do you mind if I check?" Canute asked, despite this man being a slave, he’d grown a very odd habit of seeking affirmation and consent from his little companion.

“Go ahead,” The Englishman slackened his wrist and allowed Canute to unwrap the bandage carefully. 

The clean bandage gave way to still pink but healed skin. Canute was glad that he was able to keep the promise he’d made to the boy all those months ago. He wound the rag around his own hand and slipped the bundle off onto the floor and inspected the healed burn under the lamplight. 

He wished he could have helped Thorfinn like this, "It's healed nicely." 

"Nicely?" The Englishman’s tone was suddenly harsh and indignant. He snapped his hand away from Canute’s light touch with a snarl pulling at his top lip.

Canute’s heart jumped into his throat and he could feel his head jolt backward in shock.

"It's shameful, it's a slave scar!" The Englishman picked up one of the unused Hnefatafl pieces and began tapping it angrily on the wooden desk. 

"I was thirteen summers old when I was first taken, I served a good master for five summers until he was murdered and we were all taken." His tapping increased until Canute swiped the offending piece away from his grip.

The Englishman outright glared at the young ruler, with the kind of ferocity that was completely foreign on his usually docile face. Canute released the piece but he did not pick it up again. 

He inhaled after their altercation and continued, "At first the slaver I was with was excited about me, thought I'd grow up to be big and strong, good for farm work but after a year I hadn't changed at all, and I hadn't fetched any interest, he hated me." 

Brown eyes then suddenly sought out Canute’s blues, “He _really_ hated me, Canute.”

Canute nodded but didn’t interrupt again.

"So one day, after we'd traveled across the country and he hadn't sold anything, he was really drunk by the fire, away from the other slaves. He'd asked me to bring him some meat we'd procured that day. The next thing I remember was my hand being forced into the boiling pot on the fire." 

His voice began to crack but he held steadfastly, "Then he slurred at me, _that was punishment._ " 

"Punishment for what?!" he spat in anger and injustice, trying to kill the quiver in his voice that had risen only moments earlier.

He finally steadied himself, letting all the rogue emotions dissipate into the cabin, "I think he wanted me gone so I wouldn't cost him anymore, he was too prideful to give me away, so dead was the only option. He was too much of a coward to do it himself, so he would let the infection do it instead." 

Canute swallowed, "But why were you at the market that day?" 

"To make the other slaves look better." His voice was now eerily devoid of emotion like he’d used it all up during his story.

"Does that happen often? To slaves?" Canute asked, somewhat dumbfounded. 

"No, you know that slaves are valuable,” The Englishman paused and inhaled, “other than me I guess."

His servant’s words hammered in his head, as if it was the first time he’d ever encountered cruelty in this world. As much as he’d watched the throngs of cruelty engulf those least deserving of it, now in this darkened cabin he’d finally begun to understand what cruelty truly felt like.

He watched over his English servant, who’d quickly reacted to Canute’s recoil. His eyes, like Thorfinn’s grew hesitant and worried. It wasn’t like he had ever seen that subtle of an expression on Thorfinn’s face often. His lover wore his expressions like bright primary colours, with such a conviction they could never be mistaken for anything else. 

The Englishman paused and waited for Canute. He was so clearly used to reading others and for once, Canute truly appreciated a trait in someone else. Canute inhaled, and the image that he’d spent the last few minutes trying to push out of his mind, entered with such force, it was like he’d never put any effort in at all. 

The sound was the first thing he imagined, Thorfinn’s screams mixed with the ambient crackle of the fire. Thorfinn wouldn’t scream for long however and the sound of the cries gave way to the smell, the smell of burning flesh mixed with the smell of the slave. Canute stood hastily and the Englishman pushed back on his stool, giving the Bretwalda room to breathe.

Thorfinn wasn't the man sitting in front of him. His hair was too curly, his temper too long and stood not three inches too tall, but he could so easily have been. A tension pooled in Canute’s stomach as he imagined Thorfinn in this position, stuck in the service of another. He knew that slaves did not usually end up as proxies for ex-lovers. It was unlikely that any buyer of Thorfinn would have shown him the kindness that Canute had shown this man. For a second, Canute’s worries of his kindness through ulterior motives left him and sat down again in bewilderment and carefully placed his hand over The Englishman’s.

The Englishman reacted only with a twitch in his forefinger. Canute’s hand settled tighter over the scarred hand, he made sure that that motion was not suffocating and tried best to emulate the times that he had comforted Thorfinn, well the times it had worked at least.

Canute stood again without removing his hand. He could feel the other man inhale where he sat, his hand deadly still under Canute’s own. The young ruler lifted his free hand and began to trace it along the loose blonde curls at the base of the other man’s neck. He felt a barrage of little bumps form. He let his fingers roam further, taking the base of the curl between his finger and thumb as he pulled, letting the curl unfurl between hesitant fingertips. 

He paused and pondered, when was the last time he had allowed himself to exist with such unadulterated tenderness. And then as The Englishman turned his head, amber eyes almost glowing in the lamplight, he wondered if this man, whose hair was carefully wrapped around Canute’s fingers could even remember what tenderness was at all. 

Lips parted and eyes swimming with the realms of possibility that Canute had only seen in Thorfinn before tonight, he fixated on Canute’s face. Canute let out a dry shaky breath as emotions that he had spent a year forgetting they existed settled in Canute’s gut uncomfortably. 

The voice of Sweyn threatened him in his ear with a nasty cackle, _‘this is not him_ ’.

"Please stand," he finally mustered, and The Englishman stood silently and expectantly. 

Canute ran his fingers on his familiar face. His eyes flickered over Canute’s face, in calm interest. Canute traced his fingertips over the Englishman’s cheekbone before taking his right hand by the wrist and bringing it to his own face. The motion was not as fluid as Canute would have liked as the slave let his scarred fingers furl besides Canute’s face. 

Canute waited for the tug and he was going to allow it when it came. He waited and after thirty seconds it had not come. Instead, the Englishman paused in careful calculation, focusing on the pinkness of Canute’s own scar before moving those brown eyes to the pinkness of his lips. The Englishman finally rose a few inches, and with a tiny wobble it was clear he was rising to the tips of his toes. 

This sight was suddenly new, the familiar face no longer known, as Canute pulled an unfamiliar scarred hand towards him and new and exciting lips collided with his own. Canute melted back into the lips, probably far to readily than he should have done. 

The lips then dropped from Canute’s and the eyes staring up at him were not the ones that belonged to his Icelandic lover, but to an Englishman who was taught to read by monks in a village on the northwest coast of England. Canute swallowed back his guilt and panic and silently vowed never to ask this boy about his life before him ever again. 

"You," Canute sighed, trying to find the aurora borealis in the Englishman's eyes. 

His voice finally went flat, "You will go by Thorfinn here." 

The Englishman nodded and then blinked up at Canute, "Do you wish to lay with me?"

"Would that be a problem?" Canute retorted, glad that his intentions were finally out in the open but his voice remained flat not wishing to spook the newly appointed Thorfinn. 

The Englishman paused, "I have been expecting it."

The little son of a shrimper was clearly not a stupid man. Amongst teaching himself to read and play hnefatafl, he’d been observant and cautious, eager enough to learn Canute’s patterns, likes and dislikes and cautious enough to not to tell Canute that he knew. He’d clearly understood why he had been brought here. 

At first, Canute wasn’t sure if he should, or if he wanted to at all. He looked like Thorfinn, at least in all the ways that mattered. The same dirty blonde hair that hung at the same length as he’d remembered, at first Canute hadn’t liked the curls, they were off-putting and made a man too close to perfect one step away. But as time grew on, he was careful of that step of distance. The man had the same compact body as Thorfinn’s, if not a little taller, but again, as the days they spent together stretched, he was fond of the extra inches. 

And as the fondness of the quiet English boy and his unremarkable differences grew as did Canute’s willingness to rake his eyes over his body. It had started slowly, with a glance as the slave pushed stray curls from his sweaty brow when returning from the market, arms filled with parchment and dried fish. And with each day, Canute allowed himself to look a little longer, a little harder and with eyes that were more lustful that the last time he peeked. 

The Englishman must have caught him looking with heavily lidded eyes and flushed cheeks. He probably thought Canute’s tastes just ran in a certain direction. Which they did, but what he didn’t know, perhaps until this moment, that every direction ran towards Thorfinn. 

If this boy was to truly embody his lover, he had to be willing, "Do you have a problem with it?" Canute finally asked. 

The Englishman’s hand dropped onto Canute’s bicep, fingertips chasing the material lightly. He peered up before responding, "No."

The Englishman rose again, and pressed his lips against Canute's for the second time in the evening. The kiss was unpractised and clumsy, much like when he had first kissed Thorfinn, but he didn't claw at him with the same desperation that Thorfinn had, both entangled in each other in the sheet covered cart. The kiss grew languid as the slave slipped his tongue into Canute's mouth. It was a haphazard motion but it didn't stop the blood in Canute's hands that began to fist into the short man’s tunic flowing south. Canute pulled him forward causing the Englishman to stumble from his pointed toes.

The Englishman ran his good hand over Canute's tunic and toyed with the lacing at his chest. Finally, he slipped his hand around Canute's neck and pulled him forward against his lips and then nipped kisses down the pale skin of Canute's neck.

Canute sighed at the contact, each peck like a fallen snowflake against his skin. The memory of Thorfinn's snowy eyelashes was visceral. Suddenly the lips that were against his neck were not cold enough, not chapped enough and Canute pulled away with a start.

"Not tonight Thorfinn."

The Englishman stood back whilst breathing heavily. He acquiesced quickly and kneeled by his bed of furs besides Canute’s bed.

“You have no need for those anymore, you’ll be sleeping in my bed.”

  
  
  
  
  
  


  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rules of Fetlar Hnefatafl 11x11.  
> Short overview:  
> King armed, captured from 4 sides.  
> Repetitions allowed (draw).  
> Objective:  
> The dark pieces (attackers) lay seige, their goal, to capture the king. The light pieces (defenders) must break the seige and get their king to safety.


	4. The King

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edmund Ironside, despite only being a sidenote mention in chapter 61 was an actual real-life king who holds a lot of importance in Cnut the Great's history.

**_All The King’s Men_ **

**__ **

* * *

**_Chapter 4: The King_ **

**October 1016**

Twilight had begun to dawn on the battle at Assandun. The sky slowly turned red, as if the blood on the ground had joined the heavens as rain returned to the clouds. The Danish forces had broken through Edmund’s lines. Wulf could sense the battle was almost over. The men around him were tired, and all could sense either certain victory or certain defeat. 

The tide of the battle had turned quickly once Eadric had made good on his promise to Canute from all those months prior. The moment Eadric had left the battlefield, Edmund’s men had become disorientated, disheartened and without a proper leader besides their King. This was to be the fifth and last battle to be fought between these two forces.

The cries of wounded men were deafening, and despite his years of service with a sword in his hand. They were still the only thing that he took with him from the battlefield. He looked down at his mud-caked boots. They sank and they sank until his feet were hard to lift. He tugged, one at a time until he was free. 

“Are you going to die after we’d already won this battle because you were too busy looking at your boots?” Wulf looked up, only to be faced with the forelegs of a white horse, spattered with blood and earth. He watched the horse’s fetlock bend and foot lift, in the same thick mud. 

“I apologize, Your Highness.” Wulf lifted his head to look at the Danish royal and the dying sun glowed through Canute’s flaxen hair as if he himself was producing it. 

Canute smiled, luckily jovial due to the turn in the battle. He kept his eyes forward and spoke, “As we have already won, I won’t punish your lapse in judgment too greatly. However, I will need you to tell Thorkell that the battle, and god willing, the war, is over.”

“As you wish,” Wulf bowed his head quickly in acceptance. 

Canute shifted in the saddle next to him, and Wulf could smell the leather for an instant. It was a nice change to the smell of the battlefield. Canute’s smile was wry and his tone was consolidatory, “He will not go down easy, he has been enjoying himself these past few months.”

Thorkell wouldn’t kill Wulf at least, but perhaps his whining would leave him in a state where he wished that he had. 

Then, on the horizon a man stumbled into view, tall and thick shouldered, helmet ordained with peacock feathers and wearing what could have only been his father’s armor. 

“Sir it’s Ironside! He’s the one with peacock feathers in his helmet!” Wulf yelled toward the figure, who had begun to slip down the hidden bank.

Canute charged forward on his horse and drew his sword. The man by the bank, already unsteady on his feet was then knocked backward entirely, clutching at a shallow gash all across his middle. 

Wulf chased in Canute’s wake. His boots slid on the torn grass and he narrowly missed the corpse of an Englishman as he ambled behind the royal.

By the time he’d arrived at the scene, Edmund was doubled over, his hands wrapped around his waist. Tan leather gloves were quickly stained red.

“Ah! Bastard!” Edmund barked and Canute simply looked down from his horse. 

He removed his helmet and tucked it under his arm and Edmund’s closing eyes veered upward to take a look at the great man who’d knocked him onto his back. 

And there he was. Great in his slightness and feminine beauty. Great in his unassuming presence and careful nature and most of all, great in the fact that until it was too late, he didn’t seem great at all. 

Canute’s horse walked two steps forward and Canute leaned down and pulled the final intact, absurd peacock feather that protruded from Edmund’s helmet and tucked it into his belt. The helmet had been knocked forward and covered the other man’s eyes, but a few long strands of auburn hair had fallen loose from their metal confines. 

Canute slowly began to draw his sword again and Wulf held his breath. It surely wouldn’t be like Canute to strike down another leader like this when the battle was won. 

As the blade had been half-revealed, a deep timbre made him pause, “You’re Canute aren’t you?” Edmund asked, voice hoarse and raspy from a day of shouting 

Canute did not respond and finished pulling the sword from its sheath. Edmund leaned backward in fear, but the blade came at him with an inquisitive nature, and instead of it being plunged into his throat, it simply knocked off his helmet and chainmail hood. 

Canute’s sword slowly made its way down Edmund’s neck and there it held, steadfast. 

Edmund’s chest rose and fell rapidly and nostrils that belonged to a heavily broken nose flared with every hurried breath. He glowered up at the young Dane with intense hazel eyes. Without breaking the eye contact he lifted one of his bloody mits to swipe away the dirt that had splattered across his face. The dirt and blood-smeared, conjoining the spattered freckles across his face. 

Canute returned the intensity, and his still outstretched sword did not quiver, “I am” he responded.

Edmund’s thick-set jaw tightened. 

Canute’s sword felt dangerously close, even though it was at the Englishman’s neck and not his own. Wulf was afraid to gulp the saliva that was collecting in his throat, in the fear that if he did, Canute’s sword would nick at the bulge. 

He finally swallowed when Canute returned the blade into its sheath. Canute turned his horse back in Wulf’s direction with an entirely unreadable expression layered onto his face.

* * *

A messenger approached the Viking camp quickly, a set of short legs meandering around the various equipment that had been launched across the campsite by a highly irked Thorkell. 

“A message for the Bretwalda sir, from the King,” he huffed to Wulf, eyes still looking out for a piece of cooking equipment that was likely to be launched in his direction at any moment. 

Wulf took the scroll from the messenger’s shaky grip, “I’ll take that from you, thank you.” He couldn’t read what the scroll said but he knew what the scroll meant. 

Wulf dipped behind the leather flaps of Canute’s tent and was suddenly faced with the blonde, who had quickly stood and moved closer to the conversation. 

He passed the scroll to Canute and faced the messenger once again, “There is no use for you to stay, one our heralds will take our-”

The messenger’s face sparked into life as he interrupted Wulf, “But sir, Edmund only trusts his own men.”

“If Edmund wants to negotiate peace he should learn to trust the men he’s negotiating with.”

The English boy wrung his hands over one another as if the absence of a returning scroll was going to make them utterly useless. However, he conceded quickly, probably knowing better than to argue with the Danes, “Understood sir.”

Suddenly, Wulf felt a presence beside him and Canute was peeking his head from the tent.

“Boy, before you leave. Can you fetch me a polished plate, clean enough to see your face in.” 

The messenger all but jumped from his skin at the reveal of the Bretwalda. Wulf looked from the messenger to Canute, whose face was almost neutral, asides from a promise of fickle kindness in his eyes.

“Wulf here will pay you handsomely for the task.”

The man bowed his head, possibly to avoid Canute’s eyes, “Of course sir.”

Wulf felt Canute disappear back into the tent and watched the messenger go, this time more confident in his steps. Perhaps because Thorkell was no longer in sight. 

When he returned to the tent Canute was by the fire, pouring a vessel of water into a cast iron pot. He sat carefully, knees tucked beneath his body. The position seemed comfortable to him, in fact the whole situation seemed comfortable. Canute didn’t say a word when Wulf entered again, instead, he simply watched the fire flicker around the base of the pot and the steam that began to rise from it. 

Moments passed and nothing was said at all. 

Canute tucked his loose hair behind his ears and peered into the pot and then sank back down onto his knees. It was a strange sight, the prince looked youthful and naive like this, with flushed cheeks and hair pushed from his face. He almost wanted to ask why this child had come to the battlefield, but the moment passed and suddenly the prince was the prince again when he stood and spoke.

Despite Canute’s appearance, his voice was rich, deep and full of authority, “Wulf, can you please tell Thorkell that we will be brokering peace and there is no other option, he must stand down.”

Wulf swallowed the scoff in his throat, “I’ve already told him, why do you think he’s acting like such a child?”

Canute smiled at the sentiment. Wulf could sense that Canute harboured no resentment toward the giant, and perhaps was even fond of him. He wondered if Canute had ever had someone treat him the way Thorkell does, without all the trappings and finaries of a prince?

“There has been enough Norse blood spilled in England, I will not sacrifice any more.”

There was a rustle and a thunderous voice by the side of the tent, a voice that could only belong to one person, Thorkell. 

“Where are you going with that lad?” Thorkell boomed, during his break from hurtling pieces of armor and unused wood across the campsite. 

Wulf bolted from the tent to get the item Canute had sent for and to save the English boy from being launched across the campsite next.

“It’s - it’s,” The messenger stuttered, clinging to the plate with tight fingers as he peered up at the blonde giant. 

“It’s for the prince, I will take it,” the messenger readily held out the plate and Wulf quickly exchanged it for a few silver coins, and before Wulf could say thank-you the boy had departed with such speed, he wasn’t entirely sure which direction he had gone. 

As Wulf returned to the tent he found Canute naked from the waist up, hair pulled back in a loose ponytail and tied with a leather cord. He was holding the pot from the stove in one hand and a bowl of drinking water in the other. He then poured the hot water into the bowl, returned the cast iron pot to the fire and with the rags he was holding the handle, he dipped them into the warm water and gently dabbed at his face. 

Gesturing for the plate to be brought over, Canute positioned himself by the side of the only oil lamp in the tented room.

“Thank-you,” he said as he took the plate from Wulf and situated it so he could see his reflection clearly. He then knelt beside a chest that Wulf had seldom seen him open and pulled out a dagger, robust in the hilt and thick in the blade. He placed the knife on the chest next to the plate and the bowl of water. He then reached back into the chest and pulled a small vial of oil, he popped the cork and the smell of roses filled the room.

After emptying a small portion of oil onto his fingertips, he massaged it into his beard and the surrounding skin. He covered his face with long fluid stripes from long careful fingers. Then Canute finally plunged his dagger into the warm water and began to rake the dagger across his throat. Each scrape was meticulous and Wulf was transfixed by the entire display. It was not that he had never seen a man shave before, but he had never seen someone take a blade to their own throat before with the determination as if they were going to slit it. 

Canute placed the dagger in the water and cleaned off the short blonde hairs and spoke, “We will meet with Edmund and the Witan tomorrow evening, make sure you oversee the cargo being packed.” 

Wulf nodded as his mouth was suddenly too dry to speak. 

“There’s a trunk here, I want this sent to my quarter’s immediately when we arrive,” Canute tapped the trunk in which he’d pulled the dagger and the oil with the tip of his foot.

The chest was still open, it was filled with fine silks and the vial of rose oil which would have been more expensive than the rest of the confines of the tent. Wulf didn’t know all that much about trading these days, but he knew that anything that was traded with the Middle East, couldn’t have been cheap. He forgoed looking too long at the trunk as the longer he stared, the more insidious it felt. For some reason, that trunk felt like a part of the young royal resided within it. Pieces of Canute guarded by silk and the wings of the Valkyrie. 

“Of course, your Highness”

The pattern continued. The scrape of iron on skin, the swilling in the bowl. Wulf could simply close his eyes and submerge himself in the sounds that filled the room. In a time where he felt like he shouldn’t relax, he felt himself melting into the symphony. 

Then the question struck him, “Sir, why would you shed your beard before meeting with Edmund?”

The wait between words felt almost perilous. The air grew thin and the once trusting nature they had between them dissipated with those words. _It was only a question,_ Wulf thought, but then, to a man like Canute, simple words were always more powerful than the sword anyway. 

The sound of iron against skin became deafening, each scrape becoming louder and louder until Canute spoke softly but with almost divine purpose, “There are more ways than one to win a war.” 

Wulf blinked as if his eyelids could talk in the absence of his mouth being able to do so. 

Canute swilled the dagger and returned it to its sheath and dropped it into the open chest, “If I can spare my men a premature death, I owe it to them and those who have already fallen to try.”

After taking some clean water from the now cooling pot, he splashed it over his face and then rubbed it dry with the rag. 

He looked over at Wulf. He was younger and more beautiful, the way he looked seemed far more natural for the young prince, like seafoam on the shore, that finally had returned to the sea. 

“It is but a small price to pay for peace,” Canute smiled as he pulled out the decree from Edmund and signed it swiftly. 

* * *

The voyage to Olney was brief and mostly painless. Canute only took with him the most important of men, whilst the others stayed behind at the front lines, stirring for battle whilst Canute would fight for peace. Thorkell joined them, and even when he wasn’t fighting he was always an intimidating presence, that would be thoroughly needed in this situation especially as Canute had chosen to look utterly docile and inviting. 

Upon arrival they were shown to their quarters, Canute’s being a few rooms down from Wulf’s. Canute waited by the door, as English servants pulled his leather-bound trunk into the room. He waited until it was firmly in the door and then ushered the servants away and closed the door purposefully. 

Wulf waited outside that door until Canute emerged. Once again, his face was pink over the cheeks and his tinged skin smelled slightly of roses. Canute took his place in front of Wulf and silently led them down the darkened corridors with a confidence that suggested that he already knew where he was going. Wulf felt it was things like this, intuition, that made Canute a great leader, be it down corridors of strange hows or through the labyrinth of war, Canute always seemed to know where he was going. 

“Sirs,” An English knight met them both with a nod at the pike in the corridors and they were led down into the negotiation room, where the Witan and influential noblemen had gathered.

The first person to catch Wulf’s eye was Thorkell. He was always the first person to catch attention, his presence buzzed in the room like a funeral pyre, ominous and dangerous but impossible to draw away from. The second was Edmund Ironside, who sat uncomfortably under Thorkell’s stare. He tapped his fingers on the table and averted his eyes from Thorkell, who only found his discomfort all the more amusing. Edmund’s discomfort was fair, he’d spent months watching Thorkell tear his men apart with the ease of cooked fish dropping from the bone, and here he was, drinking wine and stretching his legs under his round oak table. 

Wulf’s eyes were vigilant, there was nobody in this room they could consider a friend. 

Canute was quiet as he moved around the space. Wulf’s eyes were drawn to Canute’s clothes now they were in a better-lit environment; the luscious red tunic was a strange piece, it fit him almost as if it should fit a woman, tight around the chest and almost flaring below the belt. He ran his fingers over the tops of unoccupied chairs and unlike Thorkell, drew little attention towards him. If Wulf didn’t know any better he could have been a beautiful servant girl sent to serve wine at the meeting. 

As Canute passed Thorkell, there was suddenly one set of eyes upon him. Edmund squinted at Canute as he sat down in the seat next to Thorkell. Edmund leaned from his almost slouched position in his chair forward onto a freckled hand ordained with rings. 

An elder Witan stood as the last men from both parties finally took their seats, “We have all gathered here today because we desire one thing, peace!" He paused and looked around the great table, his focus bore down on Edmund and then at Thorkell, possibly mistaking him for the Viking royal, "England has grown weary of war, and these great men are here to bring it upon us."

“May I introduce King Edmund Ætheling Ironside, son of the late king Ethelred, god save his soul,” 

Edmund stood and bowed his head. The red locks of hair that had been caked in mud the last time Wulf had seen him were now bright and clean and pulled from his face. The red and gold from the crown upon his head were almost melting into one another as if they were being forged together in front of their eyes. That auburn hair was worn long and it draped over wide shoulders, and wide shoulders gave way to a broad chest that was concealed under a tunic of rich purple and gold. The man, who must have stood almost a head taller than Canute looked every part a king in the ways that Canute did not. 

Edmund took his seat to the thunderous applause of English noblemen, and to a loud scoff by Thorkell. 

Wulf stood and introduced Canute, “I present Canute Swyensson, son of Sweyn Forkbeard of the house Knýtlinga;”

Eyes were all drawn to Thorkell, except for Edmund’s who’s eyes were fixated on the young blonde. 

Canute stood, and confused glances were finally drawn to the correct man. The Witan who had made the earlier announcement muttered something to the man who was sat beside him. Canute also bowed his head with a coy smile before taking a seat again, to the equally loud applause of Thorkell and nobody else. 

Rounds of further introductions were made, the importance of each man whittled down in a spiral of nobility. The attention of the men around the table also spiralled until the final man was introduced and the feast was announced. 

Thorkell stood from his chair, sending it hurtling backward and he bolted from the room, toward the smell of cooking pork. The others took Thorkell’s display as a chance to relax too and they stood and began to talk to one another. 

Wulf watched Edmund stand. He did not pause to talk to his advisors, instead he walked all the way around to where the Danes stood. He did not take Thorkell’s empty chair between Wulf and Canute. He simply stood besides Canute and looked down at him, like Canute had looked down at him from his horse. 

Canute didn’t avert his eyes and slowly finished writing. Wulf could tell he was writing with a flourish, by the way the feather of his quill moved elegantly through the air. 

"Hello again Edmund," Canute spoke gently as he looked up. 

"Hello," Edmund returned, his voice was a honey baritone and had lost the scratchiness that had laced it the last time they’d met, "You look different," he continued. 

Canute quickly passed the white feather of the quill below his nose, "Yes, I do look different with a quill in my hand rather than a sword." 

Edmund clearly found Canute amusing as a smile spread across his face, revealing a singular dimple on his right cheek and a small gap between his front teeth. 

"No I was talking about your-" Edmund rubbed at his own cleft chin.

"Ah yes," Canute finally set down his quill and put all of his attention onto Edmund, "You also look different, not on your back."

Wulf agreed, he almost looked like a different man, at ease in a warm room and fine purple silks. He was almost too at ease in the vibrant colour, Wulf dare not wonder how much that dye had cost. Canute was probably thinking the same too, and what kind of man would place so much importance on the way he looked. 

Edmund drew air between the gap in his teeth and his hand moved over his abdomen, over the swipe in which Canute took to knock him on his back, "That was a cheap shot."

Wulf could sense something pulling at the side of Canute’s mouth, "Well, if you were on horseback-"

Edmund held his hand and pointed a ringed finger upward, "A real leader, leads his men on foot."

Canute cocked his head slightly and stray strands of blond hung down over the circlet on his head, "I've never heard that saying before, perhaps because all the men that thought that have been cut in half by men on horses."

Edmund continued to hold his abdomen and let out a deep laugh in surprise, "Well, you are truly nothing like I was expecting."

Raking his eyes up the redhead, Canute rolled his lips together in thought, "As are you, however, I'm looking forward to getting to know you better over these coming weeks."

"Agreed." Edmund nodded and left. Wulf noticed how Canute’s eyes didn’t leave the Englishman until Edmund had left the room with his men. 

* * *

Canute had always been a somewhat difficult man to read, but that had to come hand in hand with being a prince. Wulf had seen much greater men than Canute fall because they were easy to read. Wearing their fears on their sleeves made them easy to exploit and topple and those who wore their desires on their sleeves, even more so. Canute was marble, untouchable and cold. 

But not now, not in England. 

In England Canute was different. Wulf had heard Thorkell once talk about the last time that Canute was in England. He spoke about the young prince as if he was a different man entirely. He couldn’t imagine the Canute he knew, absently twirling his hair around a finger and cowering behind another man, too frightened to speak. Thorkell had spoken about the prince as if he were a field mouse, frail and sweet, quiet until he was forced to speak. Like a mouse squeaking at a cat, he only spoke when attacked. Thorkell had mentioned the cat too, his nephew. Then one day, the prince was somebody else entirely, his jaw clenched and eyes cold. He was no longer a mouse. 

He was no longer a mouse, but Thorkell had called him a snake. Wulf had always found it to be incredibly disrespectful. Wulf had always found Canute to be a fair man. There was a reason why Wulf had chosen to follow Canute. 

Wulf could never imagine the Canute that Thorkell knew in England, but the determined look in Canute’s eye when he approached him at the feast made him think that he may have just met the snake. 

Canute pulled him to the side before they made their way into the feast hall. A few other men passed them by and the sound of the feast flooded the hallway as they opened the door to enter. He placed a hand on Wulf’s shoulder, "Wulf," and pointed to the Skjalds, "Ask them to play ' _I dreamed a dream_ '. A servant girl with a ring on her finger will serve wine, should she pour in your glass during the third chorus do not drink, but should she not, I need you to spill wine on the man next to you."

Wulf nodded. He was unaware of Canute’s plan and part of him really didn’t want to know the true nature of it. 

They both entered the room, and amongst the merriment of the feast, their entrance went largely unnoticed asides from the servant girl who pulled out Canute’s seat before he sat. Due to Wulf’s rank he was positioned further down the table from Canute and Edmund. However, Wulf was close enough, that even with the noise, he was able to hear Canute quite clearly. 

He can hear them greet one another and take their seats. Edmund’s eyes linger, Wulf is unsure why they do, but they linger nonetheless. Canute runs his fingertips along the hem of the tunic he had changed into and Wulf watches Edmund’s eyes follow. The fingers brush at the exposed skin at Canute’s collarbones and then up the line of pearl buttons along the line of Canute’s throat. Abruptly Canute withdrew his fingers into his palm and spoke, 

“I feel this feast will not suffice”

Edmund's mouth was already partially open when he spoke, “What is the problem?”

Canute looked downward in disappointment, “Us Norsemen do not eat cooked meats.”

Edmund’s face dropped. It was unclear if the drop was down to seemingly disappointing Canute or horror in the notion that he’d invited a group of raw meat eating feral men to parle with over a civilised feast. The cause of the face was a mystery but his plump scarred lips hung open just the same. 

Canute held out his goblet to have wine poured into it, once it had been filled he drew it to his mouth and took a sip and Edmund waited. 

“We prefer it to be alive when we bite into it,” The red liquid was either genius timing or a fantastic accident, “ but dead does make more sense when feeding a feast hall full of people.”

Edmund looked around the room and his shoulders stiffened to the point where Wulf could see his shoulder muscles flex beneath his tunic. His already pale skin grew even paler as his eyes fixated on Thorkell and heavy eyebrows bore down on his battle-worn face as if he was going to be Thorkell’s next meal. 

Canute placed a hand of consolidation on Edmund’s bicep, “ _Edmund_ , I’m joking.”

Wulf couldn’t help notice that Canute had begun to hold his wrist in a gentle way, like a swan’s neck, much in the way a woman would hold themselves. 

Releasing a visual and audible sigh of relief Edmund shook his head and smiled. He held out a large hand and began to speak before stopping to gather himself, “I don’t wish to be rude but before you and your men, I’d only met-” Edmund gestured over to Thorkell who was sat in the centre of the room, putting away flagons of ale as if they were about to go rotten in the time they were poured and the time he could put them to his lips. 

Wulf winced at the impending vision of what Thorkell would do to chicken, he was sure that Edmund would possibly faint at the sight. Wulf chuckled to himself. 

“Lord Thorkell,” Canute’s words were languid before he laughed, “Yes, I see why you may have believed me then.”

Edmund looked disgruntled for a moment and Wulf could understand why. He wondered how many times if any, someone had dared try and trick him. Wulf had always wanted to see how Canute would react to a trick of this nature, but Edmund’s reaction was a good enough proxy. 

Finally, the doors of the feast hall were swung open and the smell of roasted pork and rosemary filled the room. A trail of thyme also followed, reminding Wulf of the bundles of thyme his mother would sleep with to ward off bad dreams. So far it had worked, Wulf’s experiences in England had not been bad, merely strange. It was still unclear to Wulf why Canute was acting in such a manner and why Edmund was so happy to oblige this nordic oddity. 

Wulf’s rumination was interrupted when Thorkell banged two fists on the table in excitement. Wulf’s squinted stare was suddenly fixated on the glazed suckling pig. The gloss of the skin only exemplified in the low light of the feast hall and suddenly the days of hunger caught up with Wulf and his stomach burned within him

Then Canute stood, circlet glinting in the firelight as he held his goblet to the room, “I’d like to make a toast: Thank-you to our friends in England, who’s hospitality and drive for peace is unparalleled. I hope that our relationships are as lush and bountiful as this feast!” He looked every bit the monarch he’d, for some reason he'd been pretending not to be. 

Thorkell roared in acceptance and then boomed, “This food almost makes up for the lack of fighting!”

His fellow Norsemen cheered and Thorkell’s cheers became louder and louder as if he wasn’t inside and in the presence of royalty. If Thorkell wasn’t so critical to Canute’s campaign he’d have seen that Thorkell behaved in a more appropriate manner.

Amongst the hollers and jeers of Canute’s men, Edmund stood up and gestured his own glass to the young Dane, “To Canute,” 

Canute reciprocated and held his glass to Edmund’s like he held his eyes to his, “and to peace,” he announced, to a chorus of cheers and a loud sigh from the large Jomsviking. 

The moment held, as if it was a bowstring, quivering behind an outstretched arrow. They finally clinked their glasses together and the arrow released. Wulf did his best not to flinch away from the imaginary arrow. 

The merriment continued as the worn noblemen tucked into the sea of food and drink. Thorkell tore into the meat in front of him, and in front of the man next to him as if it was going to be snatched away by wolves, Wulf’s stomach turned as he focused on the spray of excited spittle emanating from the general.

Wulf was so preoccupied with his own disgust that he almost missed when Edmund began to talk again, “Forgive me for my baseless insults on the battlefield,”

Canute looked up to Edmund’s words and cautious smile, “You do not seem to take after your father, I met with him once on the field to discuss terms, and he was not very… _cooperative_ at the time,”

Wulf couldn’t hear it, but he knew Canute well enough that he knew that Canute exhaled from his nose in the way that he did in the absence of laughter, “My father was a very headstrong man, god rest his soul.”

The air of amusement could have been foolish. It was one thing to insult one’s father and another to insult the King. However, Edmund did not seem to mind, and more importantly, he seemed to return Canute’s amusement. 

Edmund stabbed at his meat and shoveled it into his mouth, “You do not share his likeness, your mother perhaps?”

Canute swallowed on behalf of the auburn-haired man, “So I’ve been told.”

This wasn’t an uncommon question. Canute was fair and beautiful and his father was neither of those things and Edmund looked satiated, “She must’ve been a fair concubine-”

Canute leaned in and corrected, “Queen.”

Edmund finally swallowed the pork in his mouth, “Pardon?”

“She was his queen before my sire exiled her when I was three summers old,”

Wulf could sense that Canute was agitated. He couldn’t sense it in his voice, but he could tell by the way he held his shoulders ever so slightly higher than usual.

There were very few topics that would cause Canute to become uncomfortable, he had a real gift of handling every situation with a graceful and appropriate reaction, but he never mentioned his late mother for a reason. Canute who had spent the whole evening sending short glances in Wulf’s direction suddenly ceased and his eyes were set forward. 

Edmund was unaware that Canute and Harald had fetched their Mother from her exile two years ago after the first campaign in England. This was so she could live out her retirement in Denmark with her two sons, and Canute had scarcely spent one year with her before he had to return to England. Edmund was also unaware of the fact that she passed away this year whilst Canute was in England.

“Three years of age? Are you certain she was his queen? I’ve never heard of her” Edmund pointed his fork out into the feast hall, “I could’ve sworn your father only married Sigrid the Haughty.”

Wulf watched the apple bop in Canute’s throat as he began, “My late stepmother Sigrid spun the tales of my mother being a concubine to besmirch my mother's reputation and raise the status of her own children with him. My mother was his queen in every respect, a princess of Poland.”

Edmund seemed entirely unaware of Canute’s discomfort and asked, “What did your mother _do_ for your father to resort to exile of all things?”

Wulf couldn’t hear it, but he could sense the squeak that emanated from Canute as he sucked his tongue against his teeth in abject irritation with the insolent redhead, “ _She_ did nothing, my father merely set his sights on Sigrid and wished to wed the dowager and her riches, and as a result, my mother, who he hadn’t chosen himself in his youth was suddenly an obstacle for him.”

“If you were three years old are you certain she didn't do anything to soil your sire's honor?” Edmund laughed, and Wulf’s hands went freezing cold as Canute’s face went blank. Canute blinked slowly and his mouth began to turn down. 

Edmund almost stumbled over his words to move on with the topic, “An arranged marriage I assume?” Edmund’s tone suddenly flattened from accusatory to something resembling only inquisitiveness. Wulf had begun to wonder how he’d survived as a king without any sense of nuance. 

“A forced one,” Canute responded as he pointed to Thorkell with his thumb, “Thorkell and his brother Sigvaldi forced my father to wed my mother in his youth, so my sire never held much love for her to begin with,” 

Edmund should not have been disturbed, forced marriages were fairly commonplace, even though they were not entirely socially acceptable, yet Edmund’s face teemed with discomfort and Wulf couldn’t help but wonder why. Was it true empathy for Canute’s family or was he simply burying down the memory of how he procured his own wife? He exhaled and some of the discomfort seemed to leave him, “I am sorry it was rude of me to assume-” 

Canute took a drink and made an effort to disregard Edmund’s apology, “Speaking of wives, will your wife not be joining us this evening?”

Edmund responded with a soft shake of his head, “She is with child and in confinement.”

“Of course,” Canute glanced over to Wulf as Edmund engrossed himself in a forkful of potatoes, “I apologize that I must be by your side instead of your beautiful wife tonight then.”

Canute placed his hand on the table and softly drummed his fingers. The prince’s hands had always been far less suited to fighting and better suited to reading, and whatever this was. Edmund stared as Canute rubbed his thumb along his ring, twisting the silver and ruby band as if to polish it right there on his finger.

“Well, uh” Edmund paused, “It is necessary, for peace.”

Canute suddenly flattened his palm on the table and Edmund’s head snapped up to face Canute’s, “You are a far more reasonable man than your father, Edmund.”

“And you also,” Edmund finished the sentiment with a soft smile, the kind of smile that may have been foreign and unwanted on the scarred lips of a king, but by faint lines around his lips and eyes, Wulf could tell that the smile was neither of those things. Finally, Canute returned the smile with the same sort of benevolence Edmund had afforded him. 

“You are a man of god-” Edmund began again, just about managing not to fall over his words. Even if he did, it is not like his subjects would have heard amidst the excitement of the feast. 

“Yes, of course. I would not come to England without God” Canute’s face held unyielding with divine devotion, as if he was an angel himself, “We are fighting for the same God.”

Edmund’s eyes widened in awe as if he believed Canute truly was an angel. Wulf knew of Edmund’s beliefs and if there was one way that Canute was going to have Edmund trust him, it would have been through the guise of God. 

At ease, Edmund took a long swig of wine as he leaned a little further back into his chair. A little tension had been released from his purple-clad shoulders and thighs that were spread thick across the chair, “I am also a very godly man, I meet with my monk every night to pray.”

“What do you pray for?” Canute asked as he noticeably drank in the scene before him like Edmund drank his wine. Wulf almost choked on the spit that had gathered in his throat. 

Despite Canute’s clear display, Edmund did not tighten up again and he merely said, “Surely what a man prays for is only between him and God?”

Canute leaned in and pitched his voice lower and softer to the point that Wulf almost couldn’t hear, “Sometimes there are faster ways to make prayers happen than through God.”

“I prayed for peace,” Edmund’s baritone voice was filled with quiet hope for the future, and if Wulf didn’t know better, he expected Canute to give it to him, “And for you to be a good man.”

“See,” Canute crossed his legs, “Sometimes prayers can be answered in the most unexpected ways.”

In the midst of the display unfolding in front of him, Wulf almost forgot about Canute’s request. So Wulf stood and asked for the song to be played when he finally caught Canute’s signal, a raised goblet and two taps of three fingers. The song began to fill the room and two women entered the room with trays and pitchers of wine.

He spotted the woman wearing the ring. The girl in question was obvious, a nondescript English girl with light brown curls looked very peculiar wearing a silver ring with a Norse insignia. However, she wore it proudly and was probably her payment for her involvement in this ordeal. He watched carefully as she walked from man to man, pouring drinks, he was so engrossed in the girl's movements he almost didn't notice what Canute was doing, but when he did, he immediately lost focus and stared.

Canute leaned his head sideways into Edmund as if he was whispering something in his ear. This would not have seemed so strange as Canute was partial to striking a bargain or scheme during public events, but Wulf noted something extremely odd in the exchange. It was too early for Edmund's face to be this flushed from drink, yet a pink hue formed quickly on the freckled man’s face. Growing from peach dusk to magenta on the tips of his cheeks. Wulf’s eyes scanned over the two men again, perhaps Edmund had spilled his wine and he was quick to embarrass, and that's when he noticed the odd placement of Canute's arm. One would think it was still if they didn't notice the tiniest movement in Canute’s shoulder.

Wulf raised a brow and thought back to the exchanges between the two of them during the evening, the loaded questions and intense stares. It all seemed far more primal than diplomatic. Then his thoughts were interrupted by the girl with the pitcher, he noted the ring on her finger and grabbed the rim of his goblet, waiting for her to pour or not.

She took a shaky look around the room, scanning each face of the men surrounding her as if to check for something. Wulf held his breath and she passed his glass without spilling a single drop into his half-filled goblet.

Wulf feigned a sway in his movement as he stood as per Canute’s orders and spilled the red liquid on the guest next to him, flipping over a tray in the process. The room stilled and looked toward the ruckus Wulf was causing. The metal tray clanged to the ground in an awkward crescendo.

“You stupid bastard!” The man barked as he swiped at the red stain on his orange tunic. 

“I am so very sorry,” he faked, as the man seethed next to him “Girl, can we get a damp cloth for this man?”

His eye checked on Canute as he held out his hand for the damp rag and what he managed to glimpse with that quick strained look was Edmund holding his ear in disbelief, his mouth agape revealing the childlike gap between his front teeth. Canute had stood and left the table and was already heading out of the feast hall. 

The sounds of the room began to swell again with jeers and music and amongst the noise, It suddenly became very clear to Wulf that he had been creating a diversion for Canute, whose hand had most likely been resting on Edmund’s thigh when the drink was spilled and his teeth on the shell of his ear by the time the tray had hit the ground. What kind of King was Canute trying to be?

He passed the wet rag to the seething man and followed Canute from the feast hall to no protest to the unpleasant man sat beside him- he was currently shouting down the ringed girl, who was desperately patting him down with the cloth. 

Wulf found his way into the corridor which was well lit but quiet. He paced forward to find Canute, who was leaning into the wall, ankles crossed.

He pushed forward from his place in the slight shadows when he realised the huffing man approaching was Wulf.

“Can you ensure that the girl who had to see the man beside you gets compensation, that man has proved thoroughly unpleasant and because of my actions she has to deal with him.”

“Of course, but Ca-”

"We have little time Wulf, " Canute started but Wulf was gathering his senses from the absolute whiplash he’d just endured in the final moments of Canute’s appearance at the feast.

" _Tomorrow_ ,” Canute announced sternly, bringing Wulf back onto this mortal plane, “I need you to entertain our guests during the hunt and make sure that our men are on their best behaviour,” he folded his arms and the tops of his chest muscles almost began to peak into the window of his tunic, “I’ll need you to keep them in sight, in your eye line,” Wulf then looked up at Canute’s wine-stained pink lips, “As for the kill, I have sent for a boar, it should suffice."

Finally, he looked into his leader’s eyes, the centre blown out like a man in a whorehouse.

“Canute” he started, slowly beginning to understand what Canute meant with ' _more ways than one_ ', “What did you mean there were more ways than one to win a war?”

Canute guestered to Wulf to begin walking with him, away from anyone who may leave the feast still sober enough to understand what they were saying, “Wulf, do you know the story of Sodom and Gomorrah?”

“No.” He responded, a lump of anticipation forming in his throat. 

Canute hummed lightly before he began, “The story goes, that three angels come to a man named Abraham in the plains of Mamre. After the angels received the hospitality of Abraham and his wife Sarah, the Lord reveals to Abraham that he would confirm what he had heard against the cities Sodom and Gomorrah.

As their sins have been very grievous, Abraham inquires if the Lord will spare the city should fifty righteous people be found within it, to which the Lord agrees. Abraham then pleads for mercy at successively lower numbers—first forty-five, then forty, then thirty, then twenty, and finally ten—with the Lord agreeing each time.”

Canute paused as a servant girl rushed towards the hall, paying little mind to the two Norsemen.

“So, two of the angels are sent on before them to Sodom. These men are beautiful, ethereal and nothing like any mortal man has seen before. If God's love and pure gold were to be fused in the shape of a man, these men would have been so.”

Wulf swallowed as Canute continued.

“The angels are met by Abraham's nephew Lot, who convinces them to lodge with him, and he serves them a meal. But before they lay down for the night, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both young and old, all the people from every quarter absolutely enchanted by the beauty of these two angelic men. And they called unto Lot, and said unto him: ' _Where are the men that came into thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them._ '” Canute’s voice threatened to raise but it did not. 

Wulf’s heart began to hammer at his chest as Canute’s story climaxed, “But Lot refused to give his guests to the inhabitants of Sodom and, instead, offered them his two virgin daughters " _which have not known man_ " and to " _do ye to them as is good in your eyes_ ". They refused this offer, complained about this alien, namely Lot, judging them, and then came near to break down the door. Lot's angelic guests rescued him and struck the men with blindness and they informed Lot of their mission to destroy the city, then they commanded Lot to gather his family and leave. As they made their escape, one angel commanded Lot to " _look not behind thee_ ". As Sodom and Gomorrah were being destroyed with brimstone and fire from the Lord, Lot's wife looked back at the city, and she became a pillar of salt.”

Canute finished the story with piercing eyes that bore down into Wulf, leaving him cold and restless in his skin, as if the night sky beyond the walls had permeated his veins. His gaze was darkly profane and riddled with undue purpose. Wulf’s mouth was dry, and his heart hammered in his chest like war drums. So he nodded despite not understanding the true relevance of the story, just to get away from this very peculiar moment in time. 

So, he simply responded, “Your wishes will be in place for the hunt tomorrow, Your Highness.”

* * *

The legs of four horses shifted excitedly and the smell of leather filled the air. The sighs of men and horses created billows of breathy clouds in the cool morning, yet to be warmed by the sunrise. The four men shifted uncomfortably in their saddles and yawned, each of their faces tinged grey by last night’s merriment, only Wulf seemed to be alert enough to sit upright. 

“Men, this is not just any hunt. We must show the Englishmen courtesy, we musn’t act like animals today” 

The son of a Jarl, who had taken his aged father’s place groaned as if this was the first time he’d experienced a hangover.

Another man, with a thick blond beard, knotted in a braid tugged half-heartedly at the reigns of his horse, clearly uninterested and unamused with what Wulf had to say. “It’s just a hunt, we stick a boar, we take it back to eat. Surely it doesn’t matter who we are doing it with?” He groaned as he pulled down an apple from a low hanging tree, took a bite and dropped it to the floor. 

Wulf narrowed his eyes and squared his jaw, hoping to be terrifying enough to make his namesake proud. 

The man conceded and let go of his reins, “Okay, courtesy, I got it,” then his horse dipped it’s chestnut head to the ground to finish off the apple. 

Wulf and his horse walked ahead a little out into the English forest. He thought about last night, he thought about Canute’s story and the focused look in his eyes when he told it. Wulf wondered which part he was to play in that story. Lot? The men of Sodom? There was no person he wished to learn the lines of.

The sounds of birds and crunchy leaves underfoot were brutally interrupted by squeals of a boar and the rattling of the cage that contained it. The cage was left by the soldiers and as they left, Canute arrived, clad in leather hunting trousers and flaxen hair tied tight in a ribbon at the crown of his head. A bow sat readily over his shoulder and a container of arrows was fixed to his saddle. He patted at the loose braids of his horse’s white mane, the rest of the horse’s white coat looked peach in the dawning sun as she and Canute approached Wulf. 

“Sir,” Wulf greeted him with a nod.

“Wulf,” he responded with a billow of breath. The tip of his nose had already grown pink in the crisp air.

Just as the sound of the forest had become the background, so did the sounds of the boar. The sound of new hoof prints entered the opening. Canute looked over his shoulder and a smirk pulled at his lips. And as Wulf went to do the same, Canute had already turned his horse in a tight circle and began walking toward the invading sounds.

“Good Morning, Edmund!” Canute announced loudly with more enthusiasm than his entire hungover entourage could muster together. 

Edmund and his horse lead the group. He forgoed wearing his crown this morning, and his usual shoulder-length hair was tied back rather practically in a braid down the centre of his head, much like those in the mane of Canute’s horse. His cream gambeson looked new, it was devoid of the usual stains and wear of a gambeson of that colour. It was buckled to his neck and finished just short of his hips and covering it was a coat of royal blue. What was perhaps far more unusual were the black leather riding trousers that sat below the gambeson and the knee-length boots in the same inky black. The layers of black leather on Edmund’s person gave way to a black saddle engraved with ornate vines tinted with gold. Beneath it all was a fantastic beast, tall, thick and strong, every inch of the horse was covered in mottled grey spots. Wulf wondered how long it had taken the Englishmen to find such a creature and if Edmund had coordinated his hunting clothes to match it.

By the way, Edmund’s scarred yet handsome face lit up with a broad grin, he knew that the Danish prince had initiated it with a grin of his own. Wulf had never seen a wide smile on Canute’s face, he often doubted Canute was even capable of one but like the rest of him, he knew just by the way that Edmund’s smile did not cease, that it was absolutely dazzling. 

“Canute,” Edmund sighed as if greeting a long lost brother. His voice was almost tender, and it was perhaps foolish for him to display it in such a way. But then, it would only appear to be foolish in the light of the story than Canute had told him.

Wulf swallowed a lump in his throat and wondered what character Edmund Ironside was unwittingly playing. 

Canute walked his horse past Edmund and he ducked his head a little into Edmund’s space as he avoided some low hanging branches. Edmund turned his horse and followed suit. They began to speak and they had wordlessly set the tone, quieter than the night before, softer, punctuated with the sounds of the forest. Wulf couldn’t hear what they were saying this time, even with his keen ear.

As he focused on reading the words falling from Edmund’s lips whilst he leaned his body toward the blonde man. One of the English nobility, with a cragged face, approached Wulf. 

“Wulf is it?” He asked, as his black horse shifted on the spot and his saddle creaked 

Wulf resented pulling his eye away from the royals, “Yes sir” he responded, hoping that the apathy in his voice would be evident enough for him to move on. 

Unfortunately, he wasn’t discouraged by his lack of interest, “How long have you been in the young prince’s employ?”

Wulf hummed and pretended to visually count in his head as he observed the duo, their body language was familiar and jovial, as if they had been friends for years, or perhaps lovers for a portion of that,“Two years” Wulf finally provided. He wasn’t even sure if the number was correct, but he was sure that the man asking him didn’t really care for that truth anyway. 

The man’s eyes narrowed, but not as if the burgeoning sunrise was assaulting them, this suspicious look was all his own doing, “He seems very young.”

There were times before this one, when Canute did not look so young, like when he had a thin smattering of hair across his chin. Wulf was surprised just how different that small amount of hair made him look. The young prince had always been handsome, the eligible bachelor that women all across the north sea dreamed of marrying. The chainmail and large gambesons made him look larger across the shoulders and chest, and the scar on his cheek made him appear tough enough to offset the angelic feminine beauty that he emanated. But now, with no beard and only form-fitting clothes, and aside from his deep voice, it was difficult to tell Freyr from Freyja. And as Wulf glanced over at the two royals, Edmund’s cheeks flush and chest puffed as if trying to impress a beautiful woman, Wulf realised that not being able to tell god from goddess, was perhaps the whole point.

“He is a fine leader,” said Wulf as he watched the scene of Canute excitedly petting Edmund's horse unfold, he suddenly began to wonder if he wanted to believe in this new Canute at all. What kind of man would bother trying to be the Queen to someone else’s King?

Another Englishman joined the craggy-faced man after he’d clearly heard the conversation. He began, “He seems far-” 

The two men looked between one another and wry smiles came over them as they exchanged something between their eyes, “- _kinder_ than his father,” he finished, finally, even though he didn’t need to. Their deliberate glances told him enough and the doubts in his own head rattled so loudly he wondered if the two of them heard them before they’d begun to speak.

However, Wulf kept calm, “You speak as if that is a dishonorable quality”

“It is not,” the craggy-faced man urged,“but _it_ and _he_ is not what I expected from a Norseman.”

The second man looked down as if to hide a full smile that had burgeoned across his face. Wulf began to silently seethe. Anger grew against these two men, usually, he would act on such blatant disrespect but it would have gone directly against Canute’s orders. Anger grew against Canute, not as fast as the two Englishmen, but it grew nonetheless. 

Before the hunt began, Wulf kept conversation with the members of the Witan and the noblemen light, he managed to reign in their attention as Canute stole many a hushed moment of talking with Edmund. Then finally, Edmund’s voice raised to hearing level as he and Canute walked over to join the rest of the men, his voice was thick with residual laughter as he announced, “This is a fine morning for a hunt!” 

He drew his eyes away from Canute but only for a moment, as Canute responded almost immediately in his own laugh riddled voice, “Indeed.”

The men lined up in the little clearing between the trees. Canute and Edmund parted glances before Canute passed that glance onto Wulf, the spark of laughter gone from his eyes. Abruptly, a servant blew the horn and unleashed the boar. The hounds barked and ran straight ahead into the forest, Canute and Edmund took chase and the noblemen followed, hawks and falcons took off into the skies and Wulf grouped with the noblemen as Canute and Edmund disappeared in front of him.

Wulf’s horse ran steadily beneath him, crushing down the ferns and bracknell of the forest underfoot. There’s a clearing of broken foliage in front of them, just wide enough for two horses, the width oscillated as it was clear that either Edmund or Canute took the lead. As they get further into the forest, following the hounds and the trail of broken greenery, Wulf spotted an arrow in a tree ahead of him, it’s one of Canute’s with its distinctive white feathers and singular red. Wulf held two fingers and he called for a halt, and the noblemen slowed their pace as unknowingly they let Canute ride onwards with Edmund ahead of them. 

The men’s faces were riddled with doubt until a squealing sound emerged from the bushes, and a large boar stormed in their direction, the dogs growled and barked as the boar barreled onward and then men chased it’s bony hind legs. As per Canute’s plan, the noblemen and their pages were so preoccupied with shooting the hog and chasing it in the other direction they’d forgotten everything about the Bretwalda and Edmund. But Wulf could not, the sight of them laughing together plagued him for a moment as the men around him chased the beast.

After a few minutes of triaging and grappling, the English and Norsemen manage to slay the beast. It's brought home by the men who were jolly and wholly entertained by today's sport and they get the boar sent off to the kitchen. A servant girl nodded at the command and fetched the men to take the pig.

Once the men finally unsaddle after the morning’s ride, legs tired and hands shaky, they sat on the border of the forest, chugging at flagons of ale provided by the same servant girl on her way back from the kitchens on the estate. 

Suddenly there was a roar of laughter emanating from the forest, one so loud it cut through the noblemen’s own laughter. Finally, Edmund and Canute had returned. Canute's cheeks were flush, his hair windblown and Edmund's face beaming, his low braid from the morning undone. Edmund looked entirely relaxed, with his gambeson undone to the chest, unveiling a plane of milky muscled chest. The sun had kissed the same milky skin of Edmund’s face with a hundred more freckles and made him slightly red across the nose.

Wulf could hear comments from the noblemen behind him, "One can hardly imagine they met on the battlefield not too long ago." It sounded like the mocking tone of the craggy-faced man and his equally uncharming friend, "If one didn't know better, you would think they were _brothers_."

Canute hopped from his horse, thanked Edmund for his company and gave Wulf a nod and their preordained hand signal quickly across his leather-clad thigh. 

It was nighttime before Wulf finally got Canute one on one, without the prying ears and eyes of their hosts. He rapped at the door of Canute’s quarters. These secretive moments between he and Canute were starting to feel commonplace. He expected something of the sort when he rose to this position in Canute’s ranks, but he didn’t expect it to feel so sordid. 

“Come in,” Canute signalled, without coming to open the door himself. 

Canute was busy combing his hair in his quarters, the sound of the brush pulling at tangles made Wulf’s skin itch. He tugged and he tugged, being awfully rough on the ends of his hair but his movements stilled when he heard Wulf approach. 

He placed the brush on his desk before he spoke, back still facing Wulf, "I need information on Edmund's personal priest, Wulf. I need to know if he can be bribed and if so I need you to arrange it for me."

Wulf never saw Canute's face, the man kept the conversation with his back turned to him but he did note the rosary made from pearls and bone wrapped around Canute's wrist. 

“Of course, your Highness,” he faced the back of Canute’s head and bowed his own and he turned to leave the prince’s quarters. 

“Wulf,” Canute’s steady, timbre stopped Wulf in his tracks, “I trust you will be successful tonight.”

Wulf paused before opening the door to leave, “I-” 

“I need this in place for tomorrow night,” this was not a request, this was an order. 

“Of course, sir.”

* * *

Wulf’s investment in the treaty talks was not at the level it was supposed to be. His eyelids felt as if the veins within them had been pumped to the brim with lead. He’d spent the entire night arranging Canute’s plans for this evening. He hadn’t got a morsel of sleep, and merely thinking about sleep may prove dangerous in such an unfruitful and boring meeting. 

He’d spent the night carefully talking to the staff of the house, trying to find out what Edmund’s priest’s vice was. Every man had one, be it food, wine, girls or fighting and it was Wulf’s job to exploit the man whose job it was to only have the vice of religion. However, the task proved easy, the second person he spoke to, a young girl in the kitchen with bountiful brown curls and a scar across her left cheek, immediately told him that the priest’s vice was women and that he wasn’t picky in the form his vice came in either. He offered her a geld in return for the information and she stuffed it gleefully in her apron and told him where the nearest brothels were in the town after telling him ‘ _she hoped the money was for her words and not her body_ ’. A smart girl, Wulf thought as he left the confines of the estate, hooded, with a bag of geld jingling in his pocket. 

In the walk from the estate gates to the brothel, Wulf began to wonder what his own vices were. He knew they weren’t rooted in violence, he did what he had to do, but he did not garner pleasure in spilling blood. They were not routed in women either, he enjoyed beautiful women as much as the next man, but not enough to truly be called a vice. Perhaps they were rooted in alcohol, he truly loved the feeling of the first sips of alcohol, the way the liquid warmed his lips and his soul like molten gold. 

It had to be something, no man was truly viceless. He didn’t always think this way, however. He used to think that Canute was a man of no vices, that not his royal blood, but his impeccable self-control was what set him apart from the animals around him. But then, he thought of the boy on the boat and the way he seemed to enjoy his _alternative battle tactics_ a little too much and concluded he may have been incorrect all along. 

“If we divide along the river bank-” Wulf’s drooping head suddenly shot up with the heated exclamation from the Norse nobleman.

“That will never work!” an English nobleman slammed his hands on the table, “You do not know these lands!” 

Another Norseman stood with his palms laid open, clearly trying to be the diplomat, “Well some kind of arrangement has to be met, we cannot go on like this forever!”

The aggravated Englishman leaned forward and pointed at the other man with malice, “I don’t want the fate of my countrymen being decided by some Dane!”

“If these talks are not to your liking I’m sure Lord Thorkell will be more than happy to show you the other option,” and the diplomat’s hands were suddenly folded smugly under his arms. 

Thorkell had been banned from the treaty talks after an incident in the first talk, but his presence was still ever looming. The Englishman’s eyes narrowed but he recinced his pointed finger back into his shaking fist. 

All the while, Canute had stayed quiet and absently ran the feather of his quill over his lips. The movement was done in concentration, at least that’s what Wulf wanted to think, but he knew that Edmund was transfixed on the peacock feather that was travelling gently across Canute’s plump lips. 

He gradually moved the feather from his face and spoke, “Gentlemen, we must keep this civilized.” He paused as if to stand, but forgoed the movement all together. He simply placed his quill on the table and wrapped his hands over one other, “There are more ways than one to end a war, we must be patient.”

The men all followed Edmund’s gaze to the blonde prince. Unlike Wulf, none of these people had met the Canute that spoke clear and sonorous to a room of men, holding their attention like a mouse held by its tail. The men here looked shocked for a moment as if they’d forgotten that the beautiful prince could even talk at all. 

Wulf kept his eyes on Edmund, whose face opened a little in shock, before falling back into that foolish fondness that had been ever-growing on his autumnal features. 

One of the noblemen spoke again, “Of course sir but-” 

Wulf suddenly disconnected from what the man was saying when Edmund stood amongst the verbal chaos and made his way around the table to where Canute resided. He placed a large hand on Canute’s cloaked shoulder and Canute leaned forward a little so the static hand drifted ever so slightly downward. 

Wulf, only a seat away from Canute this time could hear everything clearly when Edmund spoke with his English baritone, this time smooth like a rock that had been passed through a river for a hundred summers,“That feather looks awfully familiar.” 

Canute turned his head to look at the presence behind him, the presence he was happily settling into the touch of, “Yes I took it from a wounded soldier.”

That was where the peacock feather had gone. Wulf remembered Canute sending the feather off once the battle was over. He’d thought he was having it boxed for safekeeping, an English trophy encased in Nordic oak, but he clearly had it sent away to be made into a quill. That made him wonder when did Canute first put this plan into motion in his mind.

Edmund moved his hand away but not before letting his ringed forefinger drag and linger a little longer with the movement, “Surely that is bad luck, to take something from a wounded soldier.”

Canute lifted the ridiculous quill and flourished it in the air, gently catching his lips with the turqiose feathers again in passing, “It has only brought me good luck so far,” he said as his eyes locked with Edmund’s. 

“ _Well_ , this is going nowhere,” Edmund spoke with the kind of familiarity as if they had been friends for a lifetime, it was light and jovial, yet somehow endowed with a secondary meaning. 

“Yes, it would be a far smoother process if the rest of the men here understood each other like we do,” Canute said absently as he placed the quill on the Honeywood table. 

Edmund didn’t respond verbally but his shoulders and neck stiffened in an instant. 

“ _Edmund_ ,” Canute stated, thick with that enigmatic double meaning, and the redhead’s eyes were immediately called to attention, “Call the talks.”

Straightening his posture, Edmund cleared his throat, “I propose we take an intermission; eat, sleep and we will regroup tomorrow.”

They were all no closer to striking up a deal of how to divide the country between the two dynasties so when Edmund announced the cease fire, an air of relief bathed the flame-lit room. The men in the room grumbled and shuffled in agreement, all clearly worn by the afternoon’s unfruitful arguing. Wulf postulated on why Canute had made Edmund make the announcement, perhaps it was because he didn’t want to seem weak and ready to bow to the pressure of the room, or perhaps it was just a test to see if Edmund would do as he asked. 

As the other men began to filter from the room, taking their quills and parchment with them, Wulf lingered behind with Canute and Edmund, waiting for Canute’s formal dismissal. The royals muttered between them before Canute stood, placed a hand on Wulf’s shoulder and began to walk him from the room. A faint smell of rose caught up with the flaxen-haired man. 

He began to speak, loud enough for Edmund to hear, “Wulf, Edmund and I would like a moment to discuss strategy alone and without distraction. Can you please leave, guard the door and see that nobody interrupts.”

Wulf nodded, and made his way to the double doors with Canute. Canute tapped him on the shoulder as he exited the room, and began to close the door behind him, only to leave a sliver unclosed. The guards by the door excitedly accepted the handful of geld offered to them, allowing Wulf to take their place. 

He stood by the door, waiting, eyeing the crack of orange light that spilled out into the corridor. Muffled talks came from the now deserted treaty room, the tone carried clinical and sombre. It put Wulf at ease, that was until a laugh emanated the room. He knew the laugh wasn’t from Edmund, as the laugh could have been categorized as a girlish giggle, and seemingly fit with the character Canute was determined to play.

Wulf, against his better judgment, peeked through the crack and into the room, to find a flustered Edmund watching Canute drop his woolen cape from his shoulders to reveal, once again, a tight tunic that the dane had never worn before setting foot in England. However, the fabric looked familiar, and Wulf remembered the way the fabric caught the light the same way when it was bundled into Canute’s chest. 

“Speaking of wounded soldiers,” Canute moved away from his chair and to the space directly in front of Wulf’s eye line, as if he knew Wulf was there, “Have you healed?” 

“Not entirely,” Edmund chirped, either not sensing the thickness in the air or simply choosing to ignore it. 

“I’m awfully sorry. It was never my intention to hurt you, I merely wanted your attention,” Canute finished with a smile, and heavy eyes. 

“I - uh,” Edmund stuttered before laughing slightly, trying to dissipate the situation, “You came at me with a sword, that’s a bold way of getting my attention.”

Wulf couldn’t see Edmund but he knew by the way he spoke with the finesse of a horse trying to walk with its legs tied together, the fair skinned man would have been bright red. 

Canute rolled his eyes before rolling his tongue between his lips, as Wulf’s eyes were directly drawn to his plump peony lips, he knew that Edmund’s were too, “We were on a battlefield, there are limited methods of getting one’s attention.” Wulf pulled the door open ever so slightly so he could see Edmund too, the two men were so engrossed in each other the waver in the wood couldn’t have spooked them.

“I have your attention now?” Canute spoke softly and confidently.

“Y-yes,” Edmund stuttered in response, face covered with hot blush, just as Wulf had predicted. 

Canute took a step closer to the big man. Edmund wavered in his stance as if he was going to take a step away. Wulf would have stepped away, but Edmund didn’t.

Wulf’s heart was skittering in his chest, he closed his now open mouth as if his heartbeat was to spill from his mouth like music, meaning the two men in the other room could hear him. He moved away from the crack and looked into the background of the room, focusing his attention entirely on wood panels and the elegant tapestry that hung in the back of the hall. 

“Can I see the wound?” Canute asked, just loud enough to interrupt the hammering in Wulf’s ears, “I hope it’s being treated well, I will be able to tell if it’s not.”

Wulf began to hear the shuffle of material and knew immediately that Edmund was showing Canute the scar he’d left him weeks prior. His eyes refocused automatically to the two men. 

“Here,” Wulf announced, rather sheepishly in a manner he wasn’t used to hearing men talking about their battle scars.

Canute began to run the tips of his fingers along the clean straight scar that ran from one side of Edmund’s thick waist to the other, “Your healers are good.”

Edmund hummed in satisfaction as Canute took his fingers and roamed them across the muscled outline on Edmund’s stomach, just to below where his thick chest peaked from below the bundled tuinc. 

“Canute-” Edmund warned and finally took that step backward, out of Wulf’s eye line. 

“Your stomach is strong, I am envious,” lied Canute as he stood with his hand still outstretched delicately. 

“You are beaut-” Edmund sputtered, trying to reign in his words, “If you were a beautiful woman, I -”

Canute let his hand fall by his side and his face held steady despite the entirely irrational situation.“ _What_ , Edmund?” he purred as if he didn’t know the answer, as if he hadn’t known the answer for weeks and as if he hadn’t implanted the question in Edmund’s head himself.

There was a very quick shuffle of material as Edmund finally released his bundled tunic and Canute’s eyes went from the smattering of auburn hair on Edmund’s chest to the scar on his lip.

They both waited the tension between them once again like the quivering string of an archer’s bow. 

“Please God, help me,” Edmund mumbled breathlessly and pulled Canute forward by the shoulders into a crushing kiss, finally releasing the arrow. Canute’s arms laid static by his sides in a moment of hesitation or indecision. 

As if someone had lit a fire under his feet, Wulf felt the urge to leap forward. He wanted to stop this English bastard defiling his leader but he knew that was not his decision to make. He also didn’t want to be caught peeping on the two leaders, and out himself for breaking Canute’s command for privacy. He wanted to pry his eyes away, and like the sparks in his fingers telling him to pick up a sword and defend Canute’s honour, he couldn’t do it and most of all he knew he shouldn’t. 

Then, Canute rather than pulling away like any sane man kissed Edmund back. Edmund’s hands ran down Canute’s sleeved arms, he gripped tighter as he pulled him closer and the silk rippled around his freckled fingers. Canute then leaned into the kiss further and Edmund’s hands shot from his arms to around Canute’s narrow waist. Finally, Canute’s arms looped around Edmund’s neck and tangled into his loose auburn hair.

The kiss became even more heated as if all the tension Canute had curated between them released like hot steam. They pulled into one another, moving in and out of Wulf’s eye line. A hand had made its way to Canute’s lower back, then it moved downward, cupping at his backside over his tunic. Canute had his hand fisted in Edmund’s hair and he tilted his head back and kissed along his square jaw. Wulf could hardly keep track of the scene, and wondered if Canute could either. 

Then Canute’s hands snaked around Edmund’s thick waist, and guided him backward until he hit the tapestry Wulf had been using to distract himself. Now Wulf could only see Canute, he could only see Canute lift the hem of Edmund’s short tunic and thrust it into Edmund’s bewildered hand. He could only see Canute with his back turned to Wulf, sink to his knees in front of the heaving Englishman. 

Wulf was about to look away when Canute had given him their signal, three fingers out, little finger and thumb tucked together, two taps to his lower back. 

Wulf hitched his breath and closed the door quickly but soft enough for the blissed-out Edmund not to notice. He stood guard against the closed door, he tried to calm his beating heart with deep breaths but to no avail. It all became suddenly very clear that the prince had not only known that Wulf was watching them, but had intended for Wulf to see, right from the very beginning.

He began to wonder frantically, as he pressed himself against the heavy door, like the heartbeat in his chest, what Canute’s plans were for him too. His mind raced back to the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, if Canute was the angels and Edmund the men from the cities. What did that make him? Lot or Lot’s wife? He could not look back and follow Canute into the future, or he could look back on this time, perhaps let it spill from his lips, and be remembered only as a pile of salt amongst the fire and brimstone of the Ætheling dynasty. 

  
  
  
  



	5. The King ll

**_All The King’s Men_ **

**_Chapter 5: The King II_ **

**__ **

* * *

  
  


After his attempt at unification in the treaty room, Canute made his way to the easterly courtyard where he knew Edmund spent his time before supper. Edmund liked to walk here alone in the evenings, clearly digesting whatever the day had brought him as he bathed in the reds and golds of the failing autumn sun. Canute strode ahead, probably taking larger strides than seemed natural, his body eager to begin his plan again. Wulf followed in tow, as many steps behind as he could reasonably be whilst still being in protecting distance of the prince. However, Wulf still lagged a little more with every step, most likely replaying the scene Canute had him witness slowly in the back of his mind as his footsteps dragged. 

The courtyard was encased by reddening cherry trees. They stood against the evergreens, quivering in the light breeze. Edmund paced around the courtyard, servants at a distance holding a tray of wine and dried fruits just in case the moment struck him to consume them. He looked absorbed in his thoughts as the Danish duo approached him. 

Wulf halted a few paces behind Canute. 

Softening his voice, as if not to spook the redhead Canute began, “Edmund.” His name exited his body as if a breath. 

Despite his clear intense focus on his internal monologuing, Edmund had obviously seen Canute approach, yet he returned the greeting as if Canute had materialized from the bare ground beneath them, “H- Hello.”

Edmund’s body was covered with soft muscle and his quixotic masculine frame stood almost a head taller than Canute’s. That soft muscle was riddled with small scars from battles long since over, each signifying that he was a warrior capable of fighting, but a warrior capable of winning. And yet, in all his ideal combatant glory, he stood, with a blush across his cheeks like a young boy or a woman hunched over a stove. 

His eyes strayed over Canute as if they were flies around an open jar of honey, utterly transfixed but somehow instinctually wary enough not to dive straight in. 

Canute dipped his knees a little to catch Edmund’s roaming eyes. “Do you wish to spar?” He asked, “You seem to be carrying a lot of frustration in your shoulders.”

Canute was more than aware why the man was tense, unless Edmund had somehow found the time to touch himself after Canute had left him gripping to the tapestry in the negotiations room, he’d be wound tighter than the strings on a lyre. However, Canute had organised for Edmund to be accosted by Danish noblemen the moment Canute had left him unfinished, to ensure he couldn’t find a moment’s peace anyway. 

“I-” Edmund began, seemingly unable to capture one of the thousand words that was galloping through his head and send it out of his mouth. 

Canute clasped his hands together over his hips and dipped his head a little, just as he’d seen many a good subverant person do before, “You will not hurt me, if that is what you are concerned over.”

The redhead waited as he sloppily corralled an excuse to push Canute away, “We are due to eat soon,”

“We can work up a healthy appetite,” Canute let a tiny smile pull at his lips, just enough to have Edmund’s attention drawn there, and at once it was evident that Edmund’s fickle hesitancy was clearly overwhelmed with the prospect of feeling those lips again.

Canute lifted a hand to place it on Edmund’s tunic clad shoulder, thinking better of it he let it fall limp. He worried that if he touched him again now Edmund would do something foolish, like grab him like a concubine in front of the aghast eyes of servants and the tired eyes of Wulf. Edmund did not seem like the smartest man when left to his own devices and possibly even less so when the blood in his body was circulating elsewhere other than his head. 

“Okay,” Edmund beamed, finally all hesitancy dissipating from his eyes which glowed in earthy iridescence in the dusk light, “in the back court there are some training swords.”

“Do you not trust me with a real sword?” Canute pushed without trying to seem vehemently invested in the answer. 

Edmund snickered as he waved over a servant, “Not after what happened last time, plus I fear one on one, I will gravely injure you.” He grabbed a handful of dried elderberries and as he let them fall into his mouth he waved away the servant with a sharp flick. 

Canute clasped his hands in front of himself again to narrow his shoulders further, “I’m certainly not as strong as you,” 

Edmund side eyed the blonde as he swallowed down the rest of the berries, and as if summoned by Canute’s compliment his chest widened a little. 

“Wulf, I need you to mediate this spar, I don’t want this to become a spectacle, it is just some training between friends.”

“Of course sir,” Wulf bowed his head. Canute did not miss the yawn that followed, Wulf had been up all night making sure that his plan for the evening would not fail and Canute was grateful for him, but perhaps not grateful enough not to test him when the plan called for it. 

Edmund led the two men through the servant’s quarters to the southern yard. Canute wondered if this route was really necessary, the outside paths would have been clear as it had not rained in days. They passed through narrow halls with garlands of drying herbs hanging from the ceiling. They were greeted by a myriad of reactions, some met the royal presence in their residence with varying degrees of panic, some welcomed the men with mild greetings and some skittered off to make the rooms presentable for royal eyes. Canute sensed their discomfort immediately whereas Edmund clearly did not. 

Looking back at Canute, Edmund began, “Canute I am sorry for the mess.”

And before Canute could respond with something along the lines of, ‘ _I’m sure they were not anticipating such an abrupt visit by such important guests_.’

A confident short man appeared with a head of golden hair, “Good evening your highness,”

Edmund blinked as if he was addressing the servant in morse code. 

“Elwyn, sir,” he provided as the hustle of servants trying to get out of the prince’s ways stilled, “Can I get anything for you sirs, there’s warm meade in the kitchen, I know how you norsemen like - “

Canute shook his head graciously, “No thank you, I like to keep alert -”

Stepping forward, Edmund interrupted and the little man’s confidence recoiled into itself as if a crab back into its shell, “Do not bother our guests, if the Prince of Denmark wants something he will request it himself.”

Edmund’s own ego was what was making Canute’s plan run so smoothly and yet along with his inflated entitlement was making Canute wish that the plan was over already. It made his flesh itch under his skin to see Edmund talk to them like that, yet the success of his plan hinged on Edmund's ego and his desire to overpower Canute and the Norsemen so he was powerless to say something otherwise. 

As they finally arrived at the training yard, Wulf asked the remaining servants who had yet to dissipate in the wake of the English Prince’s tirade of ignorance, to leave. The yard was small, as the manor they were staying in was only for a moderate noble family. Canute had seen many a nobleman crammed onto this yard in the previous days, each one trying to prove he was stronger than the last. 

Edmund opened the rain damaged wooden cabinet storing the training weapons, and pulled out two wooden swords, one a little longer and robust than the other.

“Supper will be ready soon, but I don’t think it will take that long for me to best you anyway, considering you are not on a horse.”

Canute forced his face to pinch into a scowl in lieu of the smirk that genuinely wanted to take up residence. Edmund had fallen so deeply into Canute’s ploy of weakness, he was sure that Edmund wholeheartedly believed that if undressed Canute would be as fragile as a woman, if not a woman entirely. Canute could not let the true feeling of scorn and disrespect overpower him. He had spent his whole life encased in this body, with his beautiful face and fragile limbs and for once, it was going to bring him success over all the men he’d wished to be like. 

So, even though it pained him to do so, stroking Edmund’s ego made him more pliable than stroking his cock, “I had heard from Lord Thorkell that your efforts in the battlefield were valiant, it may seem that he doesn’t, but he does respect you.”

The englishman let a scoff escape him that was more akin to the bark of an angry dog, “He didn’t seem to respect me or my men much when he was tearing them limb from limb.” He placed the point of the longer sword to the ground and let it spin on the tip before catching the hilt in his palm, “You chose a rather terrifying beast to be the head of your forces, Canute.” He flicked the training sword upwards and inspected the small amount of dirt on the tip, “I thought that a peaceful parle would have been out of the question until I found out that Thorkell was not the leader of the Norsemen.”

Edmund’s naturally jovial face became stormy, “That man has haunted me for little over a year,” before it opened up with a smile again, “You are like a baby bird in comparison!”

Canute laughed in tandem with Edmund, but his happiness was not entirely false. He had always set to shift any anger Edmund may have toward the Vikings onto Thorkell’s heaving shoulders. Thorkell was so easy to hate, especially from the perspective of an enemy, Canute would look simply angelic in comparison. The crux of his entire plan was for Edmund to harbour no fear or even respect as a man toward Canute. 

“Are you forgetting that I wounded you the first time we met,” Canute tested his theory. 

Edmund tittered and offered Canute the hilt of the shorter sword, “You wouldn’t hurt me now though?”

“I’m pretty sure that I couldn’t,” he took the sword and all but batted his eyelashes toward the redhead, who seemed to visibly bathe in the warm currents of air produced by Canute’s fans of his ego. 

Canute tossed the hilt from palm to palm, feeling out the weight of the training weapon. It was light, insultingly light, yet perhaps a direct numerical measure of exactly just how weak Edmund believed him to be. For a moment, he thought about letting his arm slump, claiming the sword to be too heavy but instead he uttered, “Do you not trust me enough that you would have us fight with children’s play things?” He pitched his voice slightly lower until it swam in fiegend distrust, “I thought we were past this Edmund.”

A small ‘O’ was formed of Edmunds lips before he acquiesced and handed Canute a sword of equal length and size but made from hastily formed iron. It was not a beautiful weapon especially in comparison to the sword Edmund unsheathed from his belt. Canute wished for a moment he hadn’t backtracked from his initial plan, or at least brought his own sword with him, but it wouldn’t be considered very trusting of a man to draw his own sword at his companion. Plus he had not seen very many ladies or men of subservience carrying swords on their evening walks. 

Edmund walked backward into the square clearing and the words that he uttered as he did so, “I hope this is dangerous enough for you _Eyas,_ ” lit a fire under the pit of Canute’s stomach. Canute desperately wondered if there was a reason that Edmund had chosen a baby falcon, not a chick or a gosling. Perhaps he was truly aware that Canute could be capable of dangerous things if given time, or perhaps it was simply the first thing that came to mind. 

As Canute stepped forward into the clearing Edmund matched his paces, stepping backward with each forward movement that Canute made. Edmund shifted his weight from foot to foot, before lunging forward in Canute’s direction. Canute was not a master swordsman, yet it was clear that Edmund had aimed wide purposefully. 

Edmund swiped the quickly beading sweat from his brow and tossed his hair over his shoulder. He moved forward but he did not lunge, instead he lunged with his words perhaps to distract Canute or maybe he was just genuinely interested, "You mentioned your late stepmother Sigrid's schemes against your mother, I too have one, a real wicked one at that."

Canute swung his sword forward and Edmund jumped backward instead of countering, "Ah, you're talking about Lady Emma of Normandy I assume," Canute responded as he regained his balance from his fruitless blow. 

Taking a moment to catch his breath again Edmund retorted, "Yes, she schemed against me, clawed at the chance to place her own son Edward with my sire as first in line of succession before my brother Athelstan and I."

Edmund lunged forward again, this time with more force, Canute could see the contours of his arm muscles quiver beneath the thin tunic. Canute countered Edmund’s blow. Their two swords interlocked with such force Canute could feel a strain in his shoulder socket. One thing Canute didn’t have to lie about was his prowess as a swordsmen and a warrior, he was not a physical man and he had barely picked up a sword in the years before this one. 

"Sounds like your stepmother is an ambitious woman," hissed Canute as the two swords shook in their interlocked position. Edmund pushed forward and the strain in Canute’s biceps began to burn. Quickly, and possibly foolishly, Canute caught the light of the sunset in his sword and reflected it into Edmund’s eyes in a trick that had felt all too familiar to him. Edmund dropped his sword from it’s position with haste. 

He peered back at Canute who watched nervously to see his reaction. His move was sneaky and completely out of character for the version of himself that Edmund had become so very fond of. Instead of calling the fight, Edmund dropped his sword and pulled his damp tunic from his body. He quickly wiped the sweat from his hands and discarded the ball of blue silk onto the ground. 

Edmund moved forward slightly, an ignited passion glinting in his eyes. Then in one sweep, he collected his sword from the ground and swung it at Canute in a glorious silver arc. 

Canute stumbled backward, the heel of his boot catching on the chipped soil, and for the first time since this all began, Canute had to remind himself to focus. He steadied himself 

"Don't even get me started on Emma’s ambition,” Edmund spoke as he jabbed at Canute’s space with a speed and grace Canute would have never expected from a man of his size. Canute tried quickly to focus on the conversation again as this was vital information and he could not become distracted from. 

“When my father tucked his tail between his legs like a coward and fled into exile due to you and your sire's last campaign- ” The quick jabs were met with Canute’s own quick defenses, the metallic clanks of metal on metal luckily drowned out the sound of Canutes heaving and unpracticed breaths.

Each of Edmund’s blows grew in their intensity as he spoke, his face grew stony and each word became more forceful than the last, “- She convinced my father to take leave of England with only their children, leaving my brother and I to fend for ourselves and it cost my brother his life -”

Canute could barely keep up with him, until he decided that the best thing to do would be to not keep up at all. So he fell back with a gasp as he let his right shoulder collide with one of Edmund’s jabs. He crumpled to the ground with a gasp and grabbed the skin over the shallow wound. 

Immediately, Edmund dropped his sword and ran toward Canute and knelt in front of him. He placed his own hand over Canute’s and as he pulled his own bloody hand away Edmund eyed it with guilt. Canute could not feel any pain from the cut, that would be soon to follow, but he could feel Edmund’s breath tickling his cheek, and the feel of his pulse as Edmund’s hand grew tighter around his bicep. 

Edmund’s eyes began to almost plead with Canute, the pleas of forgiveness were genuine and heartfelt. And it was clear that Canute had Edmund exactly where he needed to be.

“I am fine Edmund, it is only a scratch,” he placed his hand atop of Edmund’s and let their eyes linger on one another for a moment. His blooded hand moved over Edmund’s and squeezed down upon it. Canute had not seen Edmund’s face so close in such a well lit environment before, there were more freckles on his face than he previously thought. That pleased him for a moment, as did the green’s hidden in the browns of Edmund’s eyes, he didn’t quite understand why though. 

Suddenly the hammering of boots approached them, “Canute, your highness.” Canute looked up at a concerned Wulf. Between the concern and Wulf’s clear aversion to looking at Canute with his hand on Edmund’s bare chest, Wulf’s face almost looked comical. 

“Wulf I think it is time to retire,” Canute began to stand but let his hand linger on the dip between Edmund’s pectorals, letting his fingertips graze over the smattering of red hair there.

As he dusted himself off, Canute jibed, “You won this time Edmund.” 

Edmund did not seem to appreciate the lightheartedness, he was too concerned with being concerned to stand up to see Canute off. 

“I will see you at supper,”

“I will see you then,” Edmund responded, still floor bound and hazy with guilt. 

As he and Wulf exited the training yard Canute lifted the tight grip he had on his arm to inspect the shallow cut.

Wulf began to lean over to get a better view, “Your highness are you badly hurt?” he asked.

“Of course not,” Canute responded even though in the ebb of the adrenaline the wound had begun to throb. 

Wulf appeared to be fed up as he groaned quietly under his breath. He had good reason to want rid of this entire situation, Canute had subjected him to something that many generals would never be subjected to, and at least live to look their leader in the eye afterward. 

“That overly muscled fool’s arrogance is intolerable,” Wulf stated, his usually collected tone quivering with sleep deprived anger. 

“Yet absolutely ripe to exploit,” Canute retorted, and Wulf tried to make his satisfaction with that promise a little less obvious. It had always been obvious that Wulf was not fond of Edmund, he had never found time for arrogant men with little prowess to warrant it and suddenly he was being forced to spend all his time around one. At least Edmund’s instance on his superior swordsman ship had been true, hopefully that made Wulf feel somewhat less agitated. 

Eyeing the drying blood on his palm Canute instructed, “I will not be joining the rest of the men at supper, fetch me clean water and rags and some food from the hall when it is ready.”

“Tonight, Edmund’s priest-” Wulf began, tiredness laden in his voice, he spoke slowly as if he did not want to reach the destination of the sentence. 

“Yes, during supper bring the girls into his room for when he and Edmund return.”

Wulf nodded, visually relieved that he did not have to regale the intimacies of Canute’s plan back to him now that he was fully aware of what those intimacies constituted. They said their silent goodbyes in the courtyard 

Canute made his way back into the manor, immediately feeling more at ease with being inside rather than out. He entered his room, only to find the warm water and dressings already left for him on his desk amongst the loose papers, books and quick charcoal sketches of the view from his window. He removed his ruined tunic to better dress the wound. He cleaned it with the water and rags, the cut was clean and shallow like a line in the sand left by a child trailing a stick. It did not sting, it throbbed with a satisfying ache like the muscles of a man who had finished ploughing a field. Absently, Canute's thoughts drifted to Thorfinn and the affluent farm he had sent his lover to. 

Letting Edmund wound him was not part of Canute’s initial plan, dueling with real weapons had not been a part of the plan either and yet something possessed Canute to let them go ahead. There was a clear spark in Edmund when Canute was around him, docile and beautiful like a dove with clipped wings, but when Canute fought back that is when that spark raged. 

The plan tonight however, had to go without fault. Each element had been weighed and it had been measured, everything lay carefully balanced like the recipe for an arsenic laden loaf of bread. Everything had to be executed exactly as planned. Leave the bread in the oven too long, it will burn, alerting every man in the manor. Take the bread out too early, the centre will be raw, unfinished, leaving the bread ruined and he would be forced to start all over again. The ingredients of the bread need only be known by him. Wulf was aware of the loaf, he knew when the bread would be fired and when it should be finished for him to collect. 

Canute could almost smell the yeast of his proverbial bread as he pulled out one of the ingredients for the evening from his chest. The monk’s robe was coarse under his finger tips. He had always wondered why the men of the cloth did not ask for something a little less uncomfortable. Perhaps preaching about the sins of men was easier when your skin itched and welted beneath your clothes. 

The plan for this evening itself was simple but had entirely relied on the successful execution of every single component leading up to it. The spar, the treaty talks, the hunt and even the way Canute had his tunics tailored to make him appear even more lithe, it all had led to these few crucial hours. Once Wulf had brought him his plate of food he would make his way to Edmund’s chambers in the monk’s robes, as by now Edmund’s real priest will be occupied by the prostitutes that Wulf had employed the night before. When he and Edmund were alone, it would be easy to have Edmund devour him as his tastes had already been whetted by Canute’s foreplay in the treaty room. When Edmund was in his most compromised position Canute was to signal Wulf to barge in with company, escort ‘the priest’ from the room and have a slave exiled in Canute’s place. Edmund’s reputation would be disgraced by the sodomising of a priest and Canute would be the only viable ruler of England. 

Canute had always been willing to sacrifice himself for the good of his people. His body and his dignity would serve as the fertilizer so the flowers of his paradise could grow from them. As he had said to Wulf those weeks earlier, t _here are more ways than one to win a war_ and this was a way of fighting that he knew he could win. But nonetheless, nauseous anticipation stuck in his throat like wool soaked in honey.

As Canute wiped away the final trails of dried crimson from his arm there was a tentative knock on the door.

His heart prattled in his chest at the hollow knocking - Wulf was early. 

“Wulf-” Canute asked in aprehension. 

There was merely a grumble in response but Canute could smell the same honey glazed pork that had been filling the manor grounds all afternoon. It must have been Wulf, Canute could forgive his insolence due to everything he had been through the past day. Wulf was truly a trusted brother. 

Canute stood and began to head to the entryway to greet Wulf and collect his food, until the voice behind the door spoke again, “ _Konungamaðr_.” 

The norse word was not spoken with a norse voice, it was spoken hesitantly and carefully and entirely unaware that was not the correct way of addressing himself . Canute scrabbled to throw the robes back into the trunk and grabbed the thick hilted dagger that resided in there. He moved to the door and hid his armed hand behind the wooden pillar beside him, entirely unaware that his frantic movements had caused him to bleed once again. 

He swung the door open, not to be greeted by a sunken eyed Wulf, but to a sheepish Edmund holding a stacked plate of food. Canute quickly dropped the dagger and Edmund’s eyes pricked when the wood was met with the hunk of crafted metal. 

As Canute moved into the doorframe, acutely aware of his own half nakedness Edmund began to talk, “I noticed that you weren’t at supper and then I saw Wulf collecting a plate for you, and I felt bad about” he gestured to the cut on Canute’s tricep, “So I thought I would bring it myself, as an apology.”

He offered it to Canute, who took the heaving plate graciously and tried to keep the roasted squash from tumbling to the floor, “Thankyou Edmund.”

Canute took a moment to let a smile pull over his lips in apprehensive increments and let his eyes droop and flit over Edmund’s increasingly flustering face. Luckily, the moment was enough to distract Edmund whilst panic rose in Canute’s face as if he was being shook upside down over the burning remnants of his perfectly crafted plan. 

When Edmund’s line of sight finally landed on Canute’s naked torso, his eyes revealed that despite Canute’s best efforts of hiding it, he was in fact a man. It was always part of the plan to keep his masculinity hidden until Edmund was too riled up to care. At this point he felt as if he was being plunged directly into the fire, he could almost feel his skin peeling from his face as he waited in the doorway for Edmund to leave and take his weeks of careful planning with him. 

He waited, but he didn’t leave and somewhat embarrassingly slowly Canute began to assess the situation in front of him. Edmund stood alone, with no retinue of servants or guards, eager enough to talk to Canute to do it alone. 

Realising that Edmund had simply rearranged the ingredients for his bread rather than launching the bowl across the kitchen, Canute offered, “Will you come and eat with me?” 

“Yes,” Edmund accepted quickly, hurried into Canute’s chambers and let the door swing closed behind him. 

As he handed the plate of food back to Edmund, Canute bypassed the urge to push his desk clean with shaky unprepared hands, instead he collected each paper carefully and stacked it on the floor. He motioned for Edmund to put the plate on the desk he closed his trunk and sat upon it, offering the chair to Edmund.

Canute took a slice of warm ham and tore a portion from it and before popping it to his mouth, he spoke to his companion, “I’m surprised that Wulf let you take this from him.”

“He did put up a fight, but I think he found it difficult to say no to a prince,” Edmund placed his sturdy freckled hands upon the desk, “and I wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

The honeyed pork was sweet on Canute’s tongue but intended the following words to come out sweeter than they did, “I didn’t realise how stubborn you were, I suppose your willingness to debate peace was a momentary lapse of character.”

Edmund hummed, seemingly unphased by jibe, “No, that was more to do with being decimated on the battlefield”

“Decimated?” Canute finished the piece of pork in his hand, and asked in wide eyed innocence, “I decimated you?”

“No not you _Eyas_ , Lord Thorkell,” Edmund once again attributed the norse might to Thorkell and reduced Canute to a helpless baby bird, if this were under any other circumstance he’d have been greatly offended. 

Grinning, Edmund plifered a slice of pork from Canute’s overflowing plate and folded it into his mouth. Canute couldn't help but fixate on the small scar on his lower lip and how it had felt hard against his own, merely hours earlier. 

“Did they not teach you manners growing up?” Canute coughed and Edmund simply responded with a doe eyed, mouthful smile. 

He swallowed, “I’m just, showing you that the food hasn’t been poisoned” he grabbed the final slice and folded it into his mouth as Canute watched, “See?”

“I wasn’t suspicious, but now I am,” the blonde tilted the oil lamp on the desk in Edmund’s direction as if to further inspect the blush across his cheeks and broken nose. 

“D-don’t be I was just jesting-”

“You’re very easy to fluster,” Canute let his spare hand crawl carefully towards Edmund’s whilst still leaving enough space between them for plausible deniability. 

“I’m not, it's just- it doesn’t matter,” Edmund’s lips turned down amidst the stutters, “I feel guilty for hurting you.”

“You are a very emotionally pensive man Edmund,” Canute drew his finger over the once again drying blood. 

Looking bashful, Edmund did not respond to Canute, despite being a man with royal ego bigger than his pectorals it was clear that he did not know how to respond to a compliment that was not directed at his military prowess or ability to take a man down with a singular blow. Unlike how Ragnar had let Canute's softness bloom, most other men in his position had theirs stifled.

An unforseen warmth burgeoned in Canute’s chest as ever since he was a child he’d always relished the opportunity to weather a jagged stone in his river of empathy, “This wound is nothing, and you feel guilt over it, taking thousands of men to their deaths must be torture for you.”

However rather foolishly that warmth had been misplaced, Edmund’s clear regard for Canute could not over step his clear disregard for any person who was not legally permitted to wear the colour purple. 

“Those men are only fodder,” Edmund said, clearly perplexed. 

Canute leaned forward into the desk and pushed the plate of food toward the back of the desk with an outstretched index finger, “Do you not believe that the lives of all men are equally as important?” 

“You and I, we are royal -”

It could have been disastrous to argue with a man like Edmund, even as one prince to another yet the unplanned words tumbled from his lips, “and we could have just have easily been born as peasants.” 

Edmund’s jaw grew square and taut, it was clear he was frustrated, yet his tone remained calm. Canute realised that he could have stood and flipped the table and yet he chose not to.

“The Lord ordained that we were born as Kings,” sniffed Edmund, clearly uncomfortable with Canute’s ideological volley but stubborn enough not to let it lie. 

Canute raised his hand and let his chin rest upon it, “Do you not believe that every man and woman deserves their chance to have paradise?”

“Yes and when they die-” 

Canute interrupted once again to a wide eyed response from Edmund. This whole evening was getting further and further away from Canute’s plan, with each word Canute became a little further removed from the delicate, effigy of a person he was trying to be. 

“Do you honestly think that the men who butcher other men, and rape women, the lords who work their men until they die, do you think they will be rewarded with an eternity in paradise?”

Edmund also leaned forward, clasping his ringed hands over one another, dangerously close to Canute’s arm, “The Lord will reward those who deserve to be rewarded, if a man dies for a just cause then they will be rewarded for that in heaven.” If Canute wasn’t so incidentally riled up in talking about his dream, he would have been pleasantly taken aback by how magnanimous Edmund was being. 

“What if they can’t?” The words became gruff and deep, “I want to build a paradise here on earth so every man and woman can have a chance at paradise and perhaps, without the need for war and violence they will be rewarded with heaven once they die.” Canute had spent so long trying to recreate the boy he had been in his youth to placate Edmund now he could not shake the man he’d always wanted to be. 

Edmund waited quietly as Canute could feel his own pulse race and his own nostrils flare as passionate breaths exited his body. The unplanned silence in this unplanned situation left him nervous. His body tensed and he became hyper aware of the skin sticking together in the small rolls of his stomach. Was his own ego so large that he couldn’t hold back his only brilliance for a moment, the trait in which he abhorred Edmund so much for would be his own downfall rather than Edmund’s. 

Then Edmund finally spoke, “Surely it is exhausting to care so deeply for every man, doesn’t it leave you empty?”

“No, quite the opposite, it leaves me fulfilled.”

There was an enigmatic satisfaction in Edmund’s face when he then asked, “How did you become so -” he rolled his tongue over the scar in his lip in thought, “tender-hearted?”

“Do you think it makes me weak?”

“I did.” The redhead responded definitely before adding, “but it takes a certain kind of strength to be kind, especially when the world around you is cruel.”

There was a slight sensation at the tip of Canute’s propped elbow. He looked downward to see only the smallest gap between Edmund’s pinky finger and his elbow.

Then Canute heard a hideous snickering, deep and sickly like the hack of a dying animal. He daren’t look up to see his father’s gleeful tooth filled grin. 

“What makes you _so sure_ that I’m a good person?” the younger man asked, “In the eyes of God I am sinner.”

He thought of Thorfinn. He always thought of Thorfinn when he considered the worst of himself.

“God will forgive discrepancies if they are for the greater good -”

Then Thorfinn filled his mind, like the sunrise over a placid lake, it filled him so much and so quickly he could feel it leak out of every part of him, “Have you ever felt love?” he asked, terrified that if Edmund had returned the out of character question he could only answer it truthfully with Thorfinn’s name shaky on his lips. 

Edmund paused once again, his proclivity to think before he spoke was both surprising and entirely welcomed this evening. Canute managed to calm the sunrise and the hacking laughs of his father before Edmund spoke with narrowed eyes, “What do you mean?”

“My father never loved me, I was a weak child, never destined for anything great.”

The mention of their shared grievances with their own fathers had always been enough to draw them together, yet inexplicably in this instance Edmund responded with skepticism rather than sympathy, “I’m sure -”

Canute could feel the weeks of hard work whittle away as Edmund’s focus seemed to wane. Enigmatically, being honest had captured Edmund’s attention the best earlier and as Canute was doubting his abilities as a profoundly immoral and wicked thespian he let another foolish truth spill from him like blood from an open wound in a den of wolves.

“He didn’t, Edmund. He loved me even less when he found I preferred the company of men.” 

If Edmund left him there alone, he would be devoured by the wolves.

Silence hung atop of them like a blanket of chainmail. Neither man moved until Edmund coiled his fingers into his palms and spoke, “I thought in Norse culture, this was somewhat acceptable?”

“Not for princes.” Canute could not stop the blood from flowing, “When I was a boy, I kissed another, a stable boy who must have thought I was a girl, I’m sure my father had him killed and a few months later I was shipped to England to die, in part I think, my affliction is the reason he sent me.”

This truth was bleeding him dry, quickly and uncontrollably. This wound was one he had never opened before, even with Thorfinn. Thorfinn was a man of silence, he reacted to silent soft touches amongst the tundra of their time spent together. Edmund however seemed to react most strongly to words. Fortunately, Thorfinn allowed Canute to be himself without having to dig to the heart of him with knife shaped words. 

He should have never let Edmund in the door, he should have pushed Edmund away and forced his initial plan to unfold. 

Over the war drumming in his ears Canute almost barely registered Edmund’s curiosity tinged response, “What you did, earlier this evening, you seemed _practiced._ ”

Forcing his face to remain stony in response, Canute waited and Edmund did not say anything further. Instead, Edmund’s lips parted, revealing the small gap between his teeth as he scanned his hazel eyes over Canute. This was different to earlier in the evening, Canute had trapped Edmund in his own arousal earlier and now Edmund had him pinned with his own clumsy truths that he’d unleashed in the hopes that Edmund would reveal his own. 

Canute wanted to stand but he was worried that if he did his legs would buckle. Edmund drew his hands from the table as his eyebrows drew closer together in thought once again. Worrying that even swallowing too loudly would send Edmund fleeing to the noblemen, he almost jumped from his place atop his trunk when Edmund’s hand began to rest upon his inner thigh. Canute felt like a crossbow bolt of relief hit him in the chest as Edmund grazed his thumb over the top of his thigh in a neat line. 

Edmund looped his hand around the back of Canute’s hips and pulled him forward sliding him across the chest. They were almost nose to nose and neither took the next step, instead Canute focused on the flecks of white scars on Edmund’s cheeks. 

There was no panicked grappling from Edmund as there was before, this time it was considered and even threatened to be tender. As he laced his fingers in the back of Canute’s shoulder length hair he tipped Canute’s head back a little and then pressed his lips to Canute’s. This first kiss was chaste, as if it was the first time they had ever kissed, and in a way it was, this was a version of himself that Edmund hadn’t kissed before. 

As Edmund shifted his hands beneath Canute’s ass he deepened the kiss once again and began to lift. Canute locked his arms around Edmund’s neck and hoisted himself into the larger man and twined his legs around him. It was the first time that Canute had ever been handled in this way and he was almost drunk on the feeling and the intensity of such strength being exhibited in such a tender way. Canute finally took the first move and slipped his tongue into Edmund’s mouth, and Edmund shifted one hand from Canute’s ass to the small of his back and squeezed him in closer. 

Canute, unfortunately became aroused. It was never his intention lose control like this his plan was for Edmund to fuck him face down on his bed until Wulf caught them. As Canute tightened his legs around Edmund, thoroughly enjoying the feeling of Edmund’s thick torso between them, Edmund dropped Canute backward onto the bed. Edmund stood over Canute, arousal and fondness radiating from him like white hot heat from the centre of a fire. 

Canute parted his lips and let his eyes draw over Edmund, he did so slowly and carefully making each inch of the muscled Englishman that he drank count. Unfortunately Edmund was excruciatingly handsome, making hiding his own thickening arousal a difficult game. He shifted his hips to hide it, hoping that Edmund would simply push him onto his front and take him. 

Edmund placed a knee beside him and leaned over and Canute slipped his hand beneath his tunic, his fingers exploring his muscled and bandaged, yet still soft stomach. He leaned into kiss Canute again, just as tenderly as the last. Then he took his hand and pushed down on Canute’s pivoted narrow hips so he was flat on his back again. The redhead luckily seemed unphased until this point and ran his hand from Canute’s hip onto his chest. The kiss became more languid with each second and Canute balled his hand in Edmund’s long hair, beneath the half he wore tied up and pulled him in closer. He successfully swallowed the moan built up in the back of his throat but could not prevent his hips from rising and grinding into Edmund. 

Then Edmund paused, his hand on Canute’s small chest and seemingly very aware of Canute’s hard manhood pressing against him. He stood quickly in a blur of green silk and red hair and scrubbed his hands over his face. Letting out a panicked exhale he opened the door and left, leaving both men unsatisfied for the second time in the evening.

* * *

The sleepless night passed, giving way to a restless day. Canute rested on the stone bench overlooking the training yard that he and Edmund had trained in the night before. A book lay open, unread on his lap, the sun long since set. Edmund was not as simple as Canute had initially thought, pure sex hadn’t worked and opening up to him, getting him to trust him hadn’t either. A constant pain and panic had plagued him throughout the day. Vomit burned in his throat when he watched Edmund speak with the English nobles during their daily talks, at any moment Edmund could unleash his stupidly revealed secret and he would be finished, his reputation tarnished beyond repair.

Sweyn’s baritone cackling had followed him throughout the day, feeding on his misfortune like a wolf on the corpse of a brave sheep. _“It takes a certain kind of strength to be kind, especially when the world around you is cruel. Ha - do you think he really believes that about you now? He saw straight through you Canute!”_ It said in malicious laughter. _“You’re not only ergi but you’re a dead one at that!”_

The sounds of the servants quarters behind him bustled with the flurry of clattering pans and singing, yet it was still not enough to drown out his father’s jibes. He could have ignored them if they did not sting with a resonant truth. 

He pondered the night before as much as it pained him to do so. It was still unclear to him why he carried on his seduction when the plan had gone awry. He pushed forward with the plan knowing that Wulf was due to burst into Edmund’s chambers and not his own. Canute would have been stuck in the same compromising situation as Edmund. 

If there was a way out of this situation without spilling Edmund’s blood, he could not see it. 

Drumming his fingers on the unread words he began to formulate a plan. It had to happen quickly before the man could have any chance to spread Canute’s secret. The secret he told was easily one of the most foolish he could have done so. From the moment he shed his beard Canute had been someone other than himself until he confessed those words to Edmund. In a panicked state he told him something that was not only true but could be verified by the men who worked on his boat in London, who would pull the small English boy from Canute’s bed for a handful of silver. 

The thought of poisoning Edmund crossed his mind, but it would act too slowly or too fast, raising suspicion. His death had to look accidental. Then he thought of the hunt, and the way that Edmund’s horse had tripped on an exposed root causing Edmund to almost fall from his saddle. If he organised another hunt, he could have him fall from his horse and hit his head, or fall to the river. Canute’s fingers shook as his mind raced before he could even formulate the words to accompany the images in his mind. 

Wulf approached and as always stood a reasonable distance away from the prince.

“Your highness,” He spoke. 

“Wulf”

“The light is fading, you should come inside,” 

Canute wondered if his mental fall from grace had become obvious, “How do you think peace is coming along Wulf?”

Wulf had yet to mention Edmund taking the plate of food from him, it seemed that Wulf had called off Canute’s plan once Edmund had interrupted, Wulf was as smart as resourceful as Canute had always hoped him to be. 

“The talks are moving into our favour, I am hopeful,”

“Hope is a dangerous thing,” Canute all but sneered, “One cannot merely hope, you have to do something to ensure the outcome. And if your hand is the one forcing fate, then hope is a completely redundant concept.”

“But we, you are, ensuring this aren’t you?” Wulf’s voice suddenly lacked it’s usual conviction, “The plan.”

“Yes, the plan.” 

“Do you require me to set up the same situation as yesterday? As it did not go ahead - ”

Canute paused and Wulf silenced before he could finish explaining how he damaged-controlled Canute’s failed plan. Wulf still held conviction in Canute and his methods, he did not and need not pry, his belief was enough. 

“No, do you think we could organise another hunt for tomorrow morn? The last one went so well.”

“Yes, I can get on it right away, will a boar suffice again?”

Canute had taken no mind into what the kill should be, “A boar will be perfect. Remember, when I give you the signals, let Edmund and I ride ahead.”

“Of course sir”

Canute crossed his hands over one another atop the now closed book. 

“Let me be Wulf, I want to enjoy the final vestiges of the day alone. Please let Edmund’s court know about the hunt tomorrow.”

There was a trail of crunching grass and gravel as Wulf walked away after accepting his orders and wishing Canute a good evening. Canute looked down at his boots as the biting autumn wind nipped along the bare skin of his neck and chin, he wanted to sink his head into his neck and bring his cloak to his ears yet he could not find the motivation to do so. 

As the world around him plummeted into pitch darkness, the door of the servants quarters opened, an older woman with a small hunch and a set of chins stood in the doorway to greet the knocker. The warm light bled out into the night illuminating the stout man, arms filled with first pick fresh produce.

“They’re from the King!” Canute then recognised the voice to belong to Elwyn, the servant Edmund had been unpleasant to yesterday. 

The boy looked proud of his haul, amplified by a wide grin of pleasantly straight teeth. He bumbled his way into the door, handing a thick courgette over to the many chinned woman. In the absence of light, with his blonde head of cropped hair, large brown eyes and lack of height, Elwyn reminded him of Thorfinn. He reminded him of Thorfinn if Thorfinn had been allowed to be happy. 

Canute’s body filled with a dull ache, he felt the woes of his past trickle into his numbing fingertips. There was a time where Canute had only wished to keep Thorfinn with him, but as the years went by he wished only to have never met him. As the cruelty of the world unfolded and unfolded itself onto Thorfinn, he wished for God to have never let Thorfinn leave Iceland. 

And that’s what he dreamt of that night, between pounding bouts of semi-consciousness and sometimes even through them. He dreamt of Thorfinn in a small Icelandic house, profoundly content in never having met Canute.

* * *

Time had moved inexorably since Edmund had left Canute’s quarters. There had not been a moment of stillness, even when the world lay dormant, time did not. Amongst the glaring notes of would be silence, Canute’s head rattled with suspicious muttering of English voices.

So when Canute jolted from his state of semi slumber, he was somewhat surprised he could decipher the soft knocking at his door above the insidious whispers in his head. Canute didn’t even think to check who was behind it before he opened the door.

There stood Edmund, his cherrywood hair hanging loose around his face, only a few strands tucked behind his left ear rather than the tight way he’d usually tie it up. There was disheveled poof to his hair that carried it’s volume to his night clothes. The tunic was still silk but the colour was muted and natural and it hung comfortably from his large frame in comparison to his usually tight cuts. The final uncharacteristic element that stood out in this Edmund that stood in his doorway was his slightly sallow eyes, and the posture of a man who wasn’t even half as sure of himself as Edmund had always appeared to be. 

“You look like shit,” Canute’s sleep addled brain produced, he’d spent the evening thinking of Thorfinn and it showed.

Edmund’s shoulders slumped a little more, but this time in relaxation and he laughed with two satisfied chuckles.

Edmund’s head turned to face the window as the blackness beyond it began to be infiltrated with peaches and golds, “I haven’t slept.”

“We have a hunt in a few hours, you should rest,” Canute considered closing the door on the Englishman but then stopped as he realised if Edmund was to have him murdered it wouldn’t be in his bedchamber in the early hours of the morning, that would only bring suspicion on Edmund. 

Taking his scar on his lip between his teeth, Edmund dragged, in his sleep deprived baritone, “I’ve tried but nothing has let me rest.”

“I heard drinking yourself into a stupor works for some,” Canute swallowed and tapped his fingers against the door frame, much to what appeared to be Edmund’s guilt.

“I’m sorry I woke you,” he said, voice still quietly hoarse. 

“Yes this was a little unprecedented,” Canute all but snipped. This chargrin Edmund, despite being somewhat endearing, was not the Edmund that Canute had spent a long time studying and understanding. 

Edmund shifted uncomfortably, as if Canute’s biting thoughts had somehow made their way out into the corridor. 

“Forgive me if I do not invite you in, I feel it’s not good practice to invite your political rival into your chambers in the early hours of the morning.” 

And the longer Edmund stood there, the more the idea that Edmund was in fact there to kill him crept into his ever suspicious mind. 

“I want to help you build your paradise, in any way I can,” Edmund finally managed, his tone still thick with uncertainty. 

“Pardon?”

Edmund lifted his head to sheepishly look Canute in the eye, “You said, about the earth being riddled with sinners who couldn’t possibly see their day in paradise when they die.” He swallowed and waited, he opened his mouth once before speaking but closed it again when the right words clearly didn’t materialize. He spoke again after a second of silence, “I feel I am one of those sinners too.”

Despite Edmund’s sudden candor about the quality of his eternal undying soul, Canute’s faith in Edmund’s ego had been restored. It still took a man who held himself in high regard to tell a man that believed the entire world would be condemned to a life of suffering that just now, he realised he may be included in that statistic. 

“How so?” Canute asked, trying not to be irked. 

Edmund lifted his hands as he began to talk, “My wife, I took a nun from God’s house to be my wife-” 

His voice tailed and Canute waited for which obvious flaw any sighted man could pick out next. 

“And I fear I may suffer from the same affliction that you do,” Edmund finally finished in a way that actually left Canute momentarily shocked. 

“I left last night thinking that my attraction to you had been shattered, since you are very clearly not a woman, yet it blossomed even stronger,” he pitched his voice a little lower, a little softer ,“I am drawn to you every day just a little bit more.” 

Canute had never thought Edmund to be the type to use flowered language and maudlin sentiment. His face must have recoiled slightly at the thought as then Edmund bowed his head out of thinly veiled panic and mumbled, “Forgive my insolence this past day, coping with the notion of eternal damnation takes a little time to process. I would like nothing more than to build a paradise on earth together”

Then the look Edmund gave him, felt enduring, as if it and he would last beyond this moment and the next. It was never Canute’s intention to create this realization in Edmund, he only wished for Edmund to desire his flesh, regardless of his gender. It had never occurred to him that Edmund may have begun to fall in love. 

Edmund stepped into the room as Canute took a step backward, accepting him with a careful nod. Edmund no longer approached him with a kind of cautious revery only reserved for those who he both feared and respected. The world no longer fell silent when Edmund touched him, aside from the thumping of his own heart in his throat. As when Edmund finally grazed his hand over Canute’s ear and cupped the back of his head, tangling flaxen strands between strong fingers, the world felt comfortable. 

It felt comfortable with the sunrise on his skin, the birds singing in the daybreak and the ebb in the floor as Edmund moved his weight to press a kiss to his lips. It felt very comfortable, knowing that finally, after gut wrenching uncertainty, that he’d won. Canute returned the kiss with fervor, placing his own hands on the side of Edmund’s face he deepened it. 

Edmund’s lips parted and moved against his own and this was the first time he truly relished how they felt. He relished in the softness and the plumpness and even in the little hard scar that would pass over from time to time. They were not like Thorfinn’s lips, weather worn and twisted into a permanent scowl. Like Edmund, they were soft, thick and pliable. Canute moved his tongue into Edmund’s mouth and he Edmund noticeably relaxed into the motion, Canute opened an eye to see Edmund’s lashes flutter against his cheek, as if his eyes were rolling behind closed lids. 

Loosening his grip on Canute’s hair, Edmund let his hand trace along Canute’s tunic to the small of his back and then pulled him tightly against himself. As Edmund kissed, Canute could feel Edmund’s anxieties exit the redhead and dissipate into the ether like avenged ghosts. He slid a thick thigh between Canute’s and pulled him tighter once again. Canute removed his hands from Edmund’s face and let his right-hand bundle in Edmund’s loose tunic. He pulled Edmund closer forcing his large body to lean into Canute even further. Canute could feel his length hardening against his hip so Canute took his free hand and squeezed down on Edmund’s ass, forcing him to grind against him once again, this time accompanied with a rattled gasp. 

Then Edmund returned the favor and placed both hands on Canute’s ass. He ran his palms over the curve, toward his narrow hips, and then down his thigh. Rather than groping once again over the thin material of his tunic he paused and Canute arched his lower back a little and Edmund squeezed over both cheeks with almost childlike enthusiasm. As Edmund became increasingly flustered and transfixed, with his hand’s kneading into Canute’s ass, Canute let his lips leave Edmund’s and nip softly at his earlobe. Edmund’s head tilted backward and his grip on Canute stiffened as he pulled Canute into him even tighter. Canute almost felt his feet leave the ground as he was pushed deeper against Edmund’s thigh. The friction against his own cock sent sharp vibrations through his own body. 

Finally Edmund’s wandering hands bundled into the material of Canute’s tunic and pulled it over his head. One inquisitive hand left the haven of Canute’s ass and made its way onto Canute’s chest. The skin beneath it burned as Edmund splayed his large palm almost across its entirety. Canute had never intended there to be this level of nakedness from his part in any step of his plan. His skin prickled when Edmund finally released him to pull off his own clothes.

Canute lowered himself onto the unmade bed behind him as he felt every single ounce of his blood run into the already hard cock between his legs. He wondered how his fingers and face could feel so warm when there was absolutely no blood running beneath them. 

When Canute had dreamt of a man, he’d dreamt of Edmund. Throughout this whole plan, he had not allowed himself to desire his target, but now that was impossible. Edmund stood thick and strong bodied before him, bathed in golden sunlight. The light glimmered in his copper body hair as if each of them were alight. He was strong yet still soft, with a thin layer of fat across his body. Once Canute’s eyes finished with his broad and sculpted chest, they moved to bandage wrapped around Edmund’s stomach. The scar that they covered should be almost straight aside from the slight dip upward it took as it would around his side. Canute did not feel guilty, the man was a king on foot amidst a warzone. There are far worse things that could have happened. 

Edmund approached the bed, Canute shifted backward and led down as Edmund began to kiss him again. Like his hands, his mouth began to roam every inch of Canute’s body. It started on his lips, then down to the line of his jaw, he could feel his bristling face scratch under the grip Edmund had on his chin. They then moved to his neck, light, and then harder as they closed over his collar bone. Canute could feel his breath increase under the frantic and desperate contact. Canute hooked his leg between Edmund’s and pulled him up to his mouth again and closer. Edmund groaned in pleasure as their two cocks brushed against one another. 

Breaking the languid kiss they were sharing, Edmund leaned out and pulled Canute’s legs upward. He slid Canute across the bed and his hips upward. He began to brush the head of his cock against Canute’s tight entrance.

“Edmund, wait,” Canute panicked. He hadn’t been entered by anyone since Thorfinn and Edmund was considerably larger than his former love. He’d always expected to be penetrated by the Englishman as there was no way his inital plan could have expected Edmund to let Canute fuck him, but this was going to be obscene. He could feel the stretch even before they began. 

Hazel eyes snapped open in panic and he dropped Canute’s legs as if they were made of solid iron, “Do you not wish to do this? I am sorry, we can st-”

Canute waved him down reassuringly from his lying position on the bed, “I must use my fingers first, and use oil, I am not a woman.” Although he’d spent the time trying to emulate the allure of one, even though it was now evident that Edmund didn’t need that, “I’m sure you don’t wish to hurt me.”

Canute reached with his bandaged arm to the open trunk under the bed, he passed his hand over a few items until he found a round clay pot with a cork. 

“No-” Edmund tailed in a delayed reaction as he watched his lover uncork the vessel. 

Canute drizzled the rose oil mixed with olive oil onto his fingers and a familiar smell filled the room. The fragrance clearly sent Edmund into a spiral of memories, to when he’d first interacted with Canute, without a sword. Edmund shuffled back a little on the bed, face both transfixed and eager to learn from Canute as he slipped one glistening finger inside himself followed by another. 

Staring, lips parted at the spectacle in front of him, “Let me” Edmund whispered. 

Then Canute slipped the fingers from himself and grabbed Edmund at the wrist. With Edmund’s pulse racing under pale skin he drew Edmund’s hand to his mouth and in an act of submission and quiet enjoyment on Canute’s part, Canute licked down a thick finger before sucking it into his mouth. Canute then pushed on the knuckles of Edmund’s hand until another finger was erect in the air, then he took that into his mouth too. Drawing Edmund’s hand away slowly, he held Edmund’s gaze as the older man could not decide between looking at the pink spit slick of Canute’s bottom lip and the obsidian in Canute’s eyes. 

Finally Canute took his lubricated hand and rubbed it up Edmund’s intertwining their fingers as he transferred the oil. He guided his hand downward towards his loosening entrance. Edmund pushed in one thick finger, quickly followed by another and they began to part inside of him. Canute, with his hand still on Edmund's, pushed him in deeper at the wrist and sighed as Edmund’s fingers brushed against the part of him he hadn’t felt since Thorfinn. 

“Ah, I’m ready Edmund,” Canute whined. 

Edmund removed his fingers and wrapped his slick fingers over himself. Canute had to breathe more deeply than usual when Edmund finally pressed into him and he gripped at the furs on his bed for moral support. Luckily Edmund began slowly, not out of caution it seemed but out of lack of practice, Edmund only had two children and a distaste for mistresses, until now at least. As Edmund finally hit Canute with the hilt of his body Canute could have sworn he saw a Valkyrie to take him to Valhalla. 

Then Edmund lifted Canute by his hips and began to thrust into him with increasing vigor. Canute quickly adjusted to the sensation and revealed in the gasps and breathy moans emanating from the redhead. Gripping into Canute tighter he lifted Canute further off the bed, perfectly hitting that sweet spot.

“Ah!” Canute gasped, almost involuntarily. 

Red hair dangled in front of Edmund’s eyes and he didn't blow it away in fear of losing concentration. As the sensation built-in Canute’s gut, he couldn’t help but choke out a sob in excitement. It was almost too easy to imagine Edmund on his back instead as he submitted to Canute, cheeks red, Canute’s hand grabbing at his muscled chest. But he knew that in time when England would crumble and submit to the Norse, that would be more than enough to make up for this. 

As Edmund plowed into Canute, he laced a hand under Canute’s back to support him and then took to the other to lift Canute’s head into a kiss. Canute relished in the hot messy kiss and grabbed onto Edmund’s auburn hair at the root, deepening it. As Edmund tilted his head away from Canute’s lips he gasped and groaned into Canute’s ear. 

Suddenly the groans culminated into a guttural gasp and Canute could feel Edmund filling him up. Edmund stopped and removed himself from Canute in a lazy daze and pecked Canute on the lips before standing and pulling his night clothes over his war kissed body again.

“We have a hunt to go to!” he announced and exited the room in excitement. 

He imagined that Edmund had never experienced his wife coming before and probably expected the same from Canute too. Canute was left, wholly unsatisfied wishing his English Thorfinn was hidden in his trunk too. 

* * *

After Canute had suggested the idea of going on a hunt to Wulf, he regretted it immediately. In his panic addled mind he was sure that the repetition of the activity would either bore the Englishmen or alert them to something. However, he learned two things. Firstly that all men seemingly enjoyed the spilling of blood enough that the activity would never grow monotonous and secondly because of the first hunt, it was almost expected that the two royals would head off into the canopy of trees together. 

Canute left his signal arrow in a tree and Wulf rallied the other men in the direction towards the lake. Once the area was cleared of eyes and ears Edmund had Canute pushed against a thick bodied trunk. Their bodies worked urgently against one another, with Edmund’s mouth against Canute’s neck as he hurried with the tie on his leather hunting trousers. Edmund’s fingers slipped readily inside of him and crooked into him with absurd precision. Canute unbuckled the top of Edmund’s gambeson to draw his mouth to the skin beneath it. He tangled his hand into the braid in Edmund’s hair as he worked him with the majority of his fingers. 

Then Edmund flipped him so his hand scraped on the knobbled bark of the tree. There was a pause before the smell of lavender overcame the smell of the forest. Canute tweaked his head to see Edmund rubbing his own concoction of lavender oil and olive oil along his length. And like three hours earlier, Edmund thrust into him with fast paced vigor, spilling inside of Canute before he’d even gotten a chance to catch his breath. 

The rest of their time together proceeded exactly like the first few hours of their clandestine relationship. Edmund’s appetite was truly insatiable, the more they had sex the more Edmund craved Canute and when a part of Edmund was not inside the blonde, he spent that time looking at Canute as if his very existence gave meaning to the universe. Canute worried about Edmund’s lackadaisical approach to hiding their affair. He worried that one day a servant would catch Edmund holding Canute up against the weapons store wall, both in a state of debauched undress or a nobleman with wandering eyes would notice Edmund’s hand around Canute’s thigh during negotiation talks, just as he had done today.

After the meeting was forcibly cut short by Canute as Edmund’s knuckle brushed along his entirely neglected crotch, the two men hurried to Edmund’s quarters and pulled a chest in front of the door. The bed shook as Edmund thrust into Canute, with one of Canute’s legs over Edmund’s shoulder. Edmund had become more practiced very quickly and had settled into a steady and powerful rhythm, which caused Canute only to see white behind his eyes every time he closed them. Then Edmund lifted Canute a little, angling his hips upward and leaned forward, bracing his hand around the wrists above Canute’s head and suddenly weeks of pent up arousal exploded from Canute, all over his stomach. 

Edmund paused and lifted himself back onto his knees and looked down at Canute, who probably was pink enough to be wrapped in a bouquet of other carnations and given to a bride. 

“I didn’t know that could happen,” he breathed.

Canute could feel his heart rise in his throat as panic began to ensue, “Is it a problem?” he asked, feeling the most vulnerable he’d ever felt in his life. His pulse began to hammer, at first it was through sheer dread that his entire plan was about to fall apart again, that he’d given up his body in the hopes that his paradise could grow from it only to have it used and burned before anything could grow. Then in the most fleeting moment, he panicked because he thought that he was going to lose the time he’d suddenly began to not loathe with Edmund, 

Edmund twitched his head to the side, still transfixed upon Canute’s heaving and blush mottled chest. “No, I want to make it happen again,” he announced in breathy arousal, probably trying very hard not to make it sound overly enthusiastic, like a child hitting a target with an arrow for the first time. 

Edmund began to start again, slowly, pulling the entire length of himself in and out of Canute. Enough time and panic had passed between Canute coming and now, meaning he wasn’t immediately knocked out from oversensitivity, but he worried that if Edmund carried on like this, with long deep strokes, that he may have thought that too soon.

Everytime they slept together, he always liked to imagine Edmund beneath him, muscled back splayed like butterfly’s wings and round cheeks bouncing with every thrust Canute pushed inside of Edmund. That was truly impossible like this, especially when Edmund flipped them over and Canute was now atop of Edmund with his cock buried so deep inside of him he was concerned it was going to protrude out of his mouth. Lifting Canute by the ass, Edmund thrusted upward with determination. 

“It’s easier if you touch,” Canute instructed with a sigh as he ran his thumb along his length. Edmund nodded and finally took Canute’s come covered length into his hand and pumped in long strokes. Canute stilled Edmund’s hips and began to ride him in long purposeful movements. Then in Canute’s deprived and over-sensitive state he came again as Edmund came inside of him too. 

As Canute removed himself from the larger man, Edmund looked down at his own glistening stomach and sticky hand, “I didn’t know that could happen.” He poked at the translucence on his stomach, much to Canute’s disgust. 

“My wife, she has never, y’know,” he motioned an ejaculation movement with his hand as Canute moved to lay beside him, hiding his face behind his hair, worrying that in his post orgasm state Edmund would notice how truly endeered Canute may become. 

“It was even more pleasurable for me, when you did it too,” Edmund announced with just as much pride as there was surprise. 

Canute ran his finger along the shell of Edmund’s ear beneath the damp strands of auburn hair, “It was pretty pleasurable for me too.”

“I’m glad,” Edmund raised his head to plant a kiss on the top of Canute’s golden head. 

There had been little time where Canute could truly register the way in which Edmund lived his life. Everytime Canute had been in Edmund’s quarters he wasn’t much in the position to register the decor. Like himself, Edmund was brought to Olney for the negotiations with the invading Vikings. However, unlike himself, Edmund seemingly decided to bring the entirety of his castle with him. This did not seem out of character for Edmund, who readily wore clothes of Chinese silk that cost more than the lives of thousands of men. Thick, vibrant tapestries hung from the wall behind the bed and the wall in which the door ressided. Their deep reds and royal blues kept the room warm even when the rain lashed beyond the window. The bed, which Canute had a small amount of experience with, stood intimidating, with its four posters carved ornately from beautiful dark wood. It was filled with hay and cushioned with several layers of fur. 

Canute cast his eyes to the desk, which was not covered in paper or crumb laden plates that he’d forgotten to leave outside the door. On the whole, Edmund lived far more neatly and cleanly than Canute, although Edmund probably invited servant girls into his room to clean, whereas Canute prefered his privacy which enabled him to fill whatever space he inhabited with mess. The only item which was out of place was his armour, flung onto a chair that was carved with the same wood of the bed. Yet despite Edmund’s lack of care when he removed it, it seemed to blend effortlessly with the flag laden standard propped beside it, the combination somehow serving as the centerpiece of the room. 

The wandering gaze was interrupted by a hazy Edmund nuzzling into Canute’s hair. “You are so beautiful,” he mumbled as his nose traced along the shape of his skull, voice laden with fondness. 

Canute registered the warmth, in both the contents of the words and the breathy tickle from Edmund’s lips as he said them, “As are you,” he responded. 

Moving away from the top of Canute’s head, Edmund became face to face with Canute and on that face, beyond Edmund’s scarred lips was an amused smile, “I’m sure I am not beautiful, then the court may mistake us for two fair concubines rather than Kings!”

Edmund grinned at Canute expectantly. 

“Okay, you’re _handsome,_ ” Canute acquiesced, much to Edmund’s delight, “I’ve refrained from telling you before as your ego is already far too large.”

Edmund nodded in satisfaction. Canute wasn’t sure if the nod was in reference to Edmund having a self-awareness at the size of his ego or at the comment on his handsomeness, confirming that he had no self awareness at all. For once the latter thought didn’t irritate Canute, Edmund’s oddities had begun to grow on Canute in these past days. 

“Is your wife fair too?” The blonde asked, genuinely interested to hear more about Edmund’s life.

Edmund chewed on the inside of his cheek, a habit that Edmund partook in quite often yet somehow Canute had only just began to notice, “She is from a good family,” he paused to free his cheek from inside of his cheek, “She is not as fair as you.”

“She’s with child?” asked Canute, fully aware of the answer.

Edmund shifted from his side to his back and responded to the wooden panels on the ceiling, “Yes and I have another son.” 

Canute was already aware of that too. 

Edmund drew his left hand upward and began drawing light lines with his finger tip up the pale skin of Canute’s forearm, “Do you have any children?” he asked as Canute was almost lost in the sensation.“You have never talked about a wife,” Edmund shifted his head to look at Canute again, “I know you prefer, uh-” 

“I don’t have any children, legitimate or not,” Canute interrupted before Edmund had to face Canute’s and by recent discovery, his own affliction, “However, I should marry soon, I need to produce an heir.”

Canute had always known he would have to marry one day. His father had called both his mother and his step mother the ‘price of the crown’ so he knew for more reasons than one he would be bound into a loveless marriage. Yet, until recently and rather foolishly he’d always held out a small bastion of fantasy that he could enter a marriage with some he loved. He allowed himself to dream of such impossibility even though that mere thought made him weaker and more bitter.

“Do you think you could love a wife?” Edmund asked as if he’d heard all the thoughts fluttering through Canute’s head.

“Do you love yours?” he snipped, “When I asked you if you had ever felt love, did your wife come to mind when I asked you”

Edmund began with defense, his tone practiced as if he’d said the phrase a thousand times before, “My wife is doing me a great service-”

“That is not love” Canute stated, deciding that regardless of Edmund’s answer he wanted him to feel as miserable and infinitely loveless as he did. 

Silence fell as Edmund gathered the thoughts that Canute had thrust into his closed hands, “I felt love for my brother,” he provided after consideration.

“I also feel love for my brother but I have yet to love someone in a way a man is supposed to love his wife.” 

Canute almost thought of Thorfinn even though what they had was never and could never be akin to the love felt by two married people, it was both so much less and so much more. Adversity had both strengthened and withered the bond they shared with one another. 

Despite clumsily sharing too much of himself with Edmund, he wasn’t about to share Thorfinn with him too. Edmund was a man who clearly liked to feel special, Canute’s lost love would not sit well with a man who’s lost love would be Canute himself.

“Yet I feel that could change,” Canute spoke softly as he drew himself closer to Edmund, wrapping his body around him, “If only I was born a woman, and we could share the kingdom as king and queen, how unfortunate that god made the both of us men.”

“How very unfortunate,” Edmund dipped his head down to kiss Canute on the lips. The kiss was full of promise and longing. The kiss felt familiar, but not with Edmund. Edmund drew his hand to cup the back of Canute’s head and kissed him again, and as he did so, ran his thumb along the scar across his cheek. Canute stiffened and tried not to flinch. 

Finally, after the paralysing silence that only Canute seemed to experience, Edmund spoke, “I know Norsemen are only supposed to bathe on Saturdays, but I feel we should clean ourselves before we sleep.”

As if the tension had wound Canute so tightly letting out a laugh was the only way to release some of the unpleasantness building inside of him. 

“You’re not a very funny man,” Canute clarified as he stood.

“And yet you laughed,” announced Edmund proudly, from his still horizontal position on the bed. Canute tossed over a rag and Edmund cleared all evidence from their earlier activity from his stomach. 

Canute rolled his eyes with a soft smile and began wiping down his stomach with another rag dipped in lavender oil scented water. As he did so he peeked over at Edmund who had drawn himself into a sitting position, and had draped the white furs across his legs. His face was screwed in concentration only loosened by the soft glances he gave Canute when he wasn’t aware that Canute was peeking through the curtain of his hair. 

“ _Eyas_ ” Edmund almost sang in his breathy baritone. 

“Mmhm”

“What if we shared the kingdom?” he proposed with hesitation, as if the thought had come to him in pieces and he spoke them as they came into fruition. 

Canute stopped wiping himself and absently placed the dirty rag in the bowl of water “I thought that was the reasoning behind-”

Edmund shook his head, “No I mean rule the kingdom together, as man and, uh, _man_ or as brothers.” Canute could feel his mouth turn down involuntarily as Edmund began again, “You and your brother share the Norse empire, we can do the same.”

Canute felt his entire body heat, as if his bones had turned to firewood and his blood to oil and someone had set it ablaze. 

“Are you sure about this?” he stuttered, in utter shock, “We norsemen came to take your land and-”

“I trust you Canute. I don’t trust anyone living nor dead to treat England in the way she deserves to be treated, other than you.”

Edmund beckoned Canute back to the bed and as Canute laid beside him again, the world moved by slowly and hazily as if time itself was drunk. Canute had won, yet the win settled on his stomach like poison. 

“Do you accept my offer?” Edmund asked, with only love filling his voice.

He nodded and kissed Edmund on the lips, “Let us sleep, we shall deal with politics in the morning.”

* * *

In the morning, politics began very abruptly once again. Edmund had called an abrupt meeting, insisting that it took place right away and that all noblemen from all regions must be in attendance. The room they usually used was too small when representatives from the farthest reaches of England were crammed into it, only the most important men sat, whilst the others stood muttering to each other at their distaste for it. 

Usually Canute and Edmund would sit apart, each man at the ends of the room, huddled with the men from their own land, but as with everything else about this meeting, it was different. This time they sat together at the head of the room with their chairs pushed close together. Edmund could have picked a larger room, the feast hall would have been more than ample space and Canute more than noticed how warm Edmund’s thigh felt against his own. Canute may have underestimated Edmund’s brains because of his overwhelming brawn. 

After knocking his knee against Canute’s in a motion of familiarity, in place of a small knowing smile, Edmund stood and the room stilled its disgruntled muttering. Canute swallowed with nervous anticipation as the room in front of him held its breath.

Edmund cleared his throat with a singular cough and began sonorously, “Gracious noblemen and witan we have asked you to gather here today to bring the talks of peace to a close.” 

The distrungtled muttering morphed into surprised ones. A wall of eyes peered back at the two royals, expectantly quivering like fish trapped in seafoam. 

Placing his hand on the back of Canute’s chair, Edmund addressed the room again, “Canute, the Prince of Denmark and I have decided to share the Kingdom of England.” The next words were not spoken to the room, Canute seemed to be their only audience, “We shall rule as brothers, pledged partners.”

As Canute stood, a chorus outraged cries broke out. Each man who could not put aside their differences to even stand shoulder to shoulder suddenly became united in their indignant response to the news. 

“They act as if they expected to go to war again,” Edmund muttered to Canute as the initial outcry petered out. 

Canute looked up at Edmund, he did not look nervous, instead his jaw held set and steadfast. “Of course they expected to go to war again, most men do not know what to do with peace.” Canute wanted to believe that he was not one of those men, but as the words fell from his lips, he hoped they would be lost in the final jeers.

Edmund truly believed that he and Canute had brought peace to England. Canute felt guilt over the secret that he had trapped Edmund in. 

Then by what seemed to be a growing habit of Canute’s, he spoke without thinking, “The Danes will not have a strong hold in Wessex, this will remain under the sole rule of the English.”

As Edmund turned his head in shock, Canute could hear his lips part in shock, even above the incensed barking of the Norse nobleman. Canute looked over at Wulf, who seemed silently puzzled by Canute’s walkback. Canute could later justify it as paying respects to England, but now all Canute could justify was the sheer weight of guilt that melded into the gold amalgam of his crown. 

Edmund then placed his hand upon Canute’s shoulder and squeezed once again, smiling softly through his touch, “In the unfortunate situation that either one of us passes or becomes unfit to rule, the other shall take his place before heirs or other kin.”

Wulf’s eyes beeline for Canute’s before Canute could truly register what had been said. Years of practiced emotional chastity had prepared him for this moment as his own sheer shock was confined to his rib cage and Wulf’s frantic stare. Canute had not only won the battle for Edmund’s England, but had been given England for the rest of time, with perfectly clean bloodless hands. 

_Bloodless_ , the word suddenly became brandished upon his tongue. He knew that this entire endeavour could never be truly peaceful, he had always known that Edmund would have to be a victim of his paradise, by letting him believe that he too was one of the architects. He’d spent every ounce of his energy trying to get his plan from one step to the next, he hadn’t much thought of what he had to do once he had won. The guilt burned like the lie on his tongue, it lingered and lingered with a foreboding permanence, like everytime he would open his mouth, the memory of Edmund would lie on his tongue. 

He wondered if he was to ever kiss another, they’d be able to taste Edmund on there, he knew that if the possibility ever arose again, Thorfinn would be able to. 

He swallowed and tried not to choke.

Wulf finally stepped forward, “The Norsemen accept the terms of this treaty.”

Followed by the craggy faced English nobleman, “The Englishmen accept the terms of this treaty.”

Edmund beckoned forward a scroll that he had clearly had prepared earlier. Canute’s heavy sleeping must have missed the moment Edmund had woken during the night, clearly so eager for peace, he couldn’t wait until morning. A scribe had made the changes to the territory, removing Wessex from the Norse lands. Canute’s eyes read down the treaty as the changes were made. He was surprised to find that Edmund had already written that they were to be each other's hiers, meaning that Edmund’s dedication to Canute had not been reactionary to his own loose lipped softness.

Guilt and excitement swung inside Canute like a blade tipped pendulum, each moment where he was not hammered with guilt for forcing Edmund to fall in love with a lie the weightlessness of true victory consumed him. 

Canute laced his fingers with Edmund’s and he the older man began to jolt his hand backward and as he did, Canute bundled his other hand into Edmund’s tunic pulling him down and forward into a kiss. The site was not uncommon, especially when binding words had just been made law with a wax seal. But what was uncommon was the way the kiss lingered between the two men and how Edmund's hand rested upon Canute's waist. Who only forgoed opening their mouths to one another when they realised they were not alone in the room. 

When they broke apart, the atmosphere had not thickened, it still buzzed with the fresh possibilities of the future, completely undeterred by the somewhat tender contracting kiss between the two rulers.

Canute thrust his and Edmund’s bound hands in the air and announced, “I decree this motion a kiss of peace to all that witnessed this historical event today!”

* * *

Three days after the treaty had been signed, Canute prepared to leave. He bundled his loose scrolls into the arms of a servant,“Please have these sent to my ship in London, as quickly as you can.”

The servant scrambled with the scrolls, desperately trying to hold on to Canute’s poorly organized mess, “Of course your highness.”

For a moment Canute enjoyed the squeaks of concentration from the man, as each scroll threatened to unfurl. The scrape of paper on paper was a welcomed distraction of the never-ending chorus of laughs that spilled from his father's ghost. They were constant and unrelenting, mocking him for forcing another to fall for him the way he had for Thorfinn. 

‘How pathetic,’ he sighed, ‘now you know how you look when you think of the Thors boy - at least Edmund will not live long enough to start the cycle again…’

“Canute,” edmund’s familiar voice emanated from the open door, finally distracting Canute from the soft symphony of paper. Edmund stood with the servant he knew as Elwyn, who held a parcel wrapped in a linen cloth. 

“Your highness,” The scroll laden man bowed to Edmund as he hurried past. 

“May we enter?”

“Of course,” Canute invited the two men in. 

Edmund motioned toward the now-empty desk, “Elwyn, please place that on the desk.” 

With still steady hands Elwyn hurried forward and placed the parcel on the desk. Canute watched as he did it, chipper and carefully. He wondered why he ever saw Thorfinn in this boy that one night.

“Wonderful, thank you, you are dismissed,” Edmund smiled his gap-toothed smile at Elwyn as he bowed and left the two rulers of England. 

Canute had begun to notice how Edmund had changed, but not until now had it become so obvious. He spoke without a condescending tone, or entitlement as if Elywn deserved to take up space on the earth too. 

He even replaced the austentatious crown that he wore with a thin golden circlet studded with precious stones. 

“You’re missing a crown,” Canute jibed.

Edmund walked forward to close the gap between them, still clearly conscious of the open door behind him. He nodded and looked up, as if he could see the piece on his own head, “This was more practical”

“You look handsome,” whispered the younger. 

Edmund smiled again, this time fonder, smaller and infinitely more intimate, “I’m going to miss you, Eyas”

“We will still see each other, just not as often.” Canute patted Edmund's shoulder in friendly consolidation as he tried to diffuse the building sensual tension between them.

Craning his neck to face the door for a moment, Edmund spoke with disappointment, “Around more prying eyes perhaps.”

“We are Kings, we can demand privacy with no justification.” Canute pushed resolutely. 

This seemed to placate Edmund’s apprehension for a moment, as he held Canute’s face between two palms and kissed him emphatically on the mouth. 

Canute would miss this, if he did not have his English Thorfinn back on his boat. 

As they broke apart, Edmund’s hand traced down Canute’s sleeved arm and lingered on the crook of his elbow, “I hope you enjoy the gift, I must leave tonight, my wife is due to be in labour soon.”

“I hope the baby is healthy.” Canute responded with genuine good wishes. 

But there’s a pause as real life clearly began to enter Edmund's unwilling mind, he almost visibly shook it away when he said, “I will see you in fourteen days.”

“Fourteen days.” repeated Canute, as if to force Edmund back into his fantasy just a moment longer. 

After Edmund left the room, tenderness cut short by the lingering scribe holding an outstretched parchment and quill toward Edmund, Canute moved to the linen package on his desk. He flipped the parcel over and began to unfold it and as he did a scrap of parchment fluttered out, with the name ‘ _Eyas_ ’ written in Edmund’s hand. The name did not irritate him the way it once did and the way it should. He placed the tag on the desk beside him and made short work of the rest of the folds. His hands stilled when they reached the centre, they hovered over the appliqued blues and greens before unfurling the gift properly. 

The cape burst into life as Canute held it in front of him. The pattern of blues and greens created a pattern as if hundreds of peacock feathers had been stitched together. He looked at it for a moment as it all but shimmered in the morning light. He waited for the emotions to build within him. He waited for his father to bark in his ear, he even waited for Thorfinn’s all but forgotten scoff of disapproval. But nothing arrived. He folded the cape again neatly and packed it into his trunk, all to the unfamiliar sound of silence. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's artwork from the 1500's from Edmund & Canute's kiss of peace... for comparison: https://www.google.com/search?q=kiss+of+peace+edmund+ironside&sxsrf=ALeKk03RZf2Rzl9NActsNbQJZ6HK05-dFA:1587855687518&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwix5NWx14TpAhVVolwKHWAtAvAQ_AUoAXoECAwQAw&biw=1536&bih=722#imgrc=9G3UwGCGauIryM

**Author's Note:**

> Nidsk has been illustrating this fic please check out her tumblr for the art from this series and all her other work: www.nidsk.tumblr.com
> 
> We've had such a fantastic time conceiving and writing/drawing this fic, and we hope someone out there gets some enjoyment out of it too. We will be posting every weekend.


End file.
